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SHAKESPEARE'S 



KING HENRY THE FIFTH 



INTRODUCTION, AND NOTES EXPLANATORY AND CRITICAL, 



FOR USE IN SCHOOLS AND FAMILIES. 



Rev. HENRY N. HUDSON, LL.D. 



GINN & COMPANY 

BOSTON • NEW YORK • CHICAGO • LONDON 



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Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1880, by 

Henry N. Hudson, 
in the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 



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GINN & COMPANY ■ PRO- 
PRIETORS • BOSTON • U.S.A. 



INTRODUCTION 



History of the Play. 

THE Life of Henry the Fifth, as it is called in the 
folio of 1623, was registered, along with As You Like 
It, at the Stationers', August 4, 1600, but was locked up 
from the press under an order " to be stayed." In respect 
of As You Like It the stay seems to have been continued ; 
but not so in regard to the other, as this was entered again 
on the 14th of the same month, and was published in the 
course of that year. The same text was reissued in 1602, 
and again in 1608. In these editions, known as the quartos, 
the author's name was not given : the play, moreover, was 
but about half as long as we have it ; the Choruses, the whole 
of the first scene, and also many other passages, those too 
among the best in the play, and even in the whole compass 
of the the Poet's works, being wanting altogether. All these, 
besides more or less of enlargement in a great many places, 
together with the marks of a careful finishing hand running 
through the whole, were supplied in the folio of 1623 ; which, 
accordingly, is our only authority for the text, though the 
quartos yield valuable aid towards correcting the errors and 
curing the defects of that copy. 

That the issue of 1600 was surreptitious is on all hands 
allowed. But there has been much controversy whether it 
was printed from a full and perfect copy of the play as first 
written, or from a mangled and mutilated copy, such as 



4 KING HENRY THE FIFTH. 

could be made up by unauthorized and incompetent report- 
ers. Many things might be urged on either side of this 
question ; but, as no certain conclusion seems likely to be 
reached, the discussion probably may as well be spared. 
Perhaps the most considerable argument for the former posi- 
tion is, that the quarto has in some cases several consecutive 
lines precisely as they stand in the folio ; while, on the other 
hand, of many of the longest and best passages in the folio 
the quarto has no traces whatever. But this is nowise deci- 
sive of the point either way, because, granting that some per- 
son or persons undertook to report the play as spoken, it is 
not impossible that he or they may have taken down some 
parts very carefully, and omitted others altogether. And the 
Editors of the folio tell us in their Preface that there were 
" divers stolen and surreptitious copies, maimed and deformed 
by the frauds and stealths of injurious impostors that exposed 
them." 

And here it may not be unfitting to remark that in other 
cases, as especially in Hamlet, we have strong and even 
conclusive evidence of the Poet's plays having been carefully 
rewritten and vastly improved after the original draughts of 
them had been made. Nor is it unlikely that some of them 
underwent this process more than once. And the fact is of 
consequence as refuting what used to be, and perhaps still 
is, the common notion, that Shakespeare's best workmanship 
was struck out with little or no labour of reflection and study. 
Assuredly it was not without severe and patient exercise of 
thought that he achieved his miracles of poetry and art, and 
won his place as the greatest of human intellects. We have 
been taught to think of him as a prodigy of genius going 
rather by nature and instinct than by reason and purpose, 
and beating all other men because he could not help it; 



INTRODUCTION. 5 

whereas in truth his judgment was fully equal to his genius ; 
and his greatness stands in nothing else so much as in just 
that solidity and sobriety of understanding which comes by 
industry and application, and by making the best use of 
one's native gifts. And the instance of King He?iry the 
Fifth yields pregnant matter in this behalf; the difference 
between the quarto and folio copies in that case not being 
greater than between the first and second quartos of Hamlet. 
In the Epilogue to King Henry the Fourth the speaker 
says, " Our humble author will continue the story, with Sir 
John in it, and make you merry with fair Catharine of 
France." Whether this promise was directly authorized by 
Shakespeare, we cannot positively say, as that Epilogue was 
probably not of his writing; but there is little doubt that 
the play to which it is affixed was written as early as 1597. 
That the play now in hand was written soon after *the date 
of that promise, is highly probable. On the other hand, in 
the Chorus to Act v. we have the following : 

Were now the general of our gracious Empress — 
As in good time he may — from Ireland coming, 
Bringing rebellion broached on his .sword, 
How many would the peaceful city quit, 
To welcome him ! 

This undoubtedly refers to the Earl of Essex, who went on 
his expedition against the Irish rebels in April, 1599, and 
returned in September following. That Chorus, therefore, 
and probably the others also, was written somewhere be- 
tween those two dates. The most likely conclusion, then, 
seems to be, that the first draught of the play was made in 
1597 or 1598; that the whole was rewritten, enlarged, and 
the Choruses added during the absence of Essex, in the 
Summer of 1599 ; and that a copy of the first draught was 



6 KING HENRY THE FIFTH. 

obtained for the press, fraudulently, after it had been super- 
seded on the stage by the enlarged and finished copy. 

Historic Matter of the Play. 

In this play, as in King Henry the Fourth, the historical 
matter was taken from Holinshed, both the substance and 
the order of the events being much the same as they are 
given by the historian. The King came to the throne in 
March, 14 13, being then twenty-six years old. The Parlia- 
ment with which the play opens was held in the Spring of 
14 14, and the King's marriage with Catharine took place in 
the Spring of 1420 ; so that the time of the action is meas- 
ured by that interval. 

The civil troubles which so much harassed the preceding 
reign naturally started the young King upon the policy of 
busying his subjects in foreign quarrels ; " that action, hence 
borne out, might waste the memory of the former days." 
At the Parliament just mentioned a proposition was made, 
and met with great favour, to convert a large amount of 
Church property to the uses of the State ; which put the 
Clergy upon adding the weighty arguments of their means 
and counsel in furtherance of the same policy ; inasmuch 
as they judged that the best way to prevent a spoiling of the 
Church was by engaging all minds in a transport of patriotic 
fervour. King Henry derived his claim to the throne of 
France from Isabella, Queen of Edward the Second, and 
daughter of Philip the Fair ; he being the fourth in a direct 
line of descent from that celebrated woman. This Philip 
had left two sons, both of whom died without male issue ; 
whereupon the crown passed to Charles the Fair, the young- 
est brother of Philip. In effect, the English King was easily 



INTRODUCTION. J 

persuaded that the Salique law had no right to bar him from 
the throne of France ; and ambassadors were sent over to 
demand the French crown and all its dependencies ; the 
King offering withal to take the Princess Catharine in mar- 
riage, and endow her with a part of the possessions claimed ; 
at the same time threatening that, if this were not done, " he 
would recover his right and inheritance with mortal war and 
dint of sword." An embassy being soon after received from 
France, the demand was renewed, and peremptorily insisted 
on. The French King being then incapable of rule, the 
government was in the hands of the Dauphin, who saw fit 
to play off some merry taunts on the English monarch, 
referring to his former pranks ; whereupon the latter dis- 
missed the ambassadors, bidding them tell their master that 
within three months he would enter France as his own true 
and lawful patrimony, " meaning to acquire the same, not 
with big words, but with the deeds of men." 

This took place in June, 1415. Before the end of July 
the King's preparations were complete, and his army landed 
at Harfleur on the 15th of August. By the 2 2d of Septem- 
ber the town was brought to an unconditional surrender, and 
put in the keeping of an English garrison. The English 
army was now reduced to about half its original numbers ; 
nevertheless the King, having first challenged the Dauphin 
to single combat, and getting no answer, took the bold 
resolution of marching through several provinces to Calais. 
After a slow and toilsome march, during which they suffered 
much from famine and hostile attacks, the army came within 
sight of Agincourt, where the French were strongly posted, 
so that Henry must either surrender or cut his way through 
them. The French army spent the following night in revelry 
and debate, and in fixing the ransom of King Henry and his 



8 KING HENRY THE FIFTH. 

nobles. The night being cold, dark, and rainy, many fires 
were kindled in both camps ; and the English, worn out 
with labour, want, and sickness, passed the hours in anxious 
preparation, making their wills and saying their prayers, and 
hearing every now and then peals of laughter and merriment 
from the French lines. During most of the night the King 
was moving about among his men, scattering words of com- 
fort and hope in their ears, and arranging the order of battle ; 
and before sunrise he had them called to matins, and from 
prayers led them into the field. From the confident bearing 
of the French it was supposed they would hasten to begin 
the fight, but when it was found that they kept within their 
lines, the King gave order to advance upon them. The 
battle continued with the utmost fury for three hours, and 
resulted in the death of ten thousand Frenchmen, five hun- 
dred of whom had been knighted the day before. Some 
report that not above twenty-five of the English were slain ; 
others affirm the number to have been not less than five or 
six hundred. 

The news of this victory caused infinite rejoicing in Eng- 
land, and the King soon hastened over to receive the con- 
gratulations of his people. When he arrived at Dover, the 
crowd plunged into the waves to meet him, and carried him 
in their arms from the vessel to the beach : all the way to 
London was one triumphal procession : Lords, Commons, 
Clergy, Mayor, Aldermen, and citizens flocked forth to wel- 
come him : pageants were set up in the streets, wine ran in 
conduits, bands of children sang his praise ; and, in short, 
the whole population were in a perfect ecstasy of joy. 

During his stay in England, the King was visited by sev- 
eral great personages, the Emperor Sigismund being one 
of them, who came to mediate a peace between him and 



INTRODUCTION. 9 

France. The Emperor was entertained with great magnifi- 
cence, but his mission accomplished nothing to the purpose. 
After divers attempts at a settlement by negotiation, the King 
renewed the war in 141 7, and in August landed in Normandy 
with an army. From that time he had an almost uninter- 
rupted career of conquest till the Spring of 1420, when all 
his demands were granted, and himself publicly affianced to 
the Princess Catharine. 

From this sketch it may well be judged that the matter 
was not altogether fitted for dramatic use, as it gave too 
little scope for those developments of character and passion 
wherein the interest of the serious drama mainly consists. 
For, as Schlegel remarks, " war is an epic rather than a 
dramatic subject : to yield the right interest for the stage, 
it must be the means whereby something else is accom- 
plished, and not the last aim and substance of the whole." 
And perhaps it was a sense of this unfitness of the matter 
for dramatic use that led the Poet, upon the revisal, to pour 
through the work so large a measure of the lyrical element, 
thus penetrating and filling it with the efficacy of a grand 
national song of triumph. Hence comes it that the play is 
so thoroughly charged with the spirit and poetry of a sort 
of jubilant patriotism, of which the King himself is probably 
the most eloquent impersonation ever delineated. Viewed 
in this light, the piece, however inferior to others in dramatic 
effect, is as perfect in its way as any thing the Poet has given 
us. And it has a peculiar value as indicating what Shake- 
speare might have done in other forms of poetry, had he 
been so minded ; the Choruses in general, and especially 
that to the fourth Act, being unrivalled in spirit, clearness, 
and force. — Of course the play has its unity in the hero ; 
who is never for a moment out of our feelings : even when 



IO KING HENRY THE FIFTH. 

he is most absent or unseen, the thought and expression 
still relish of him ; and the most prosaic parts are touched 
with a certain grace and effluence from him. 

"Why Falstaff is not Introduced. 

For some cause or other, the promise, already quoted, 
touching the continuation of Sir John was not made good. 
Falstaff does not once appear in the play. I suspect that, 
when the author went to planning the drama, he saw the 
impracticability of making any thing more out of him ; 
while there was at least some danger lest the part should 
degenerate into clap-trap. And indeed the very fact of 
such a promise being made might well infer a purpose 
rather too theatrical for the just rights of truth and art. 
At all events, Sir John's dramatic office and mission were 
clearly at an end when his connection with Prince Henry 
was broken off; the design of the character being to explain 
the Prince's wild and riotous courses. Besides, Falstaff 
must have had so much of manhood in him as to love the 
Prince, else he were too bad a man for the Prince to be 
with ; and when he was so sternly cast off, the grief of this 
wound must in all reason have sadly palsied his sport- 
making powers. To have continued him with his wits 
shattered or crippled, had been flagrant injustice to him ; 
to have continued him with his wits sound and in good trim, 
had been something unjust to the Prince. 

To be sure, Falstaff repenting and reforming might be a 
much better man ; but in that capacity he was not for us. 
In such a man as he has been, the process of repentance 
must be secret, else it would not be edifying ; and to set it 
forth upon the stage as matter of public amusement, were 



INTRODUCTION. II 

a clear instance of profanation. Such a thing ought never 
to be shown at all, save as it transpires silently in the fruits 
of an amended life. So that the Poet did well to keep 
Falstaff in retirement where, though his once matchless 
powers no longer give us pleasure, yet the report of his 
sufferings gently touches our pity, and recovers him to our 
human sympathies. And when at last the Hostess tells us 
" the King has killed his heart," what a volume of redeem- 
ing matter is suggested concerning him ! We then for the 
first time begin to respect him as a man, because we see 
that he has a heart as well as a brain ; and that his heart is 
big and strong enough to outwrestle his profligacy, and 
give death the advantage of him. And it is observable that 
those who see much of him, although they do not respect 
him, and can but stand amazed at his overpowering freshets 
of humour, nevertheless get strongly attached to him. This 
is especially the case with that strangely-interesting crea- 
ture, Mrs. Quickly ; and now we can hardly choose but 
think the better both of Falstaff and of Bardolph, when, 
the former having died, and a question being raised as to 
where he has gone, the latter says, " Would I were with 
him, wheresome'er he is, either in Heaven or in Hell ! " In 
Quickly's account of his last moments there is a pathos to 
which I know of nothing similar, and which is as touching 
as it is peculiar. It is in Shakespeare's choicest vein of 
humour. — His make-up being so original, and so plenipo- 
tent in wit and humour, it was but natural that Sir John, 
upon his departure, should leave some audible vibrations in 
the air behind him. The last of these dies away upon the 
ear when Fluellen uses him to point a moral; and this 
reference, so queerly characteristic of the speaker, is abun- 
dantly grateful as serving to start up a swarm of laughing 
memories. 



12 KING HENRY THE FIFTH. 



The Comic Characters. 



In the comic portions of this play we have a fresh illus- 
tration of the Poet's versatility and range of genius. There 
is indeed nothing here that comes up to the earlier scenes 
at Eastcheap : so much is implied in the absence of Falstafif; 
for nothing else in the comic line can be expected to equal 
that delineation. But Hostess Quickly reappears as Mrs. 
Pistol, the same character, but running into an amusing 
variety of development : the swaggering Pistol is also the 
same as before, only in a somewhat more efflorescent stage ; 
ranting out with greater gust than ever the picked-up 
fustian of the bear-garden and the play-house ; a very fuligi- 
nous pistol — without fire: Bardolph, too, with his "face 
all bubukles, and whelks, and knobs, and flames of fire," but 
advanced in rank, and carrying a sense of higher importance. 
With these we have an altogether original addition in Cor- 
poral Nym, a delineation of low character in the Poet's 
most realistic style ; with a vein of humour so lifelike as to 
seem a literal transcript from fact ; while the native vulgarity 
of the man is kept from being disgusting by the freshness and 
spirit with which his characteristic traits are delivered. 

These three good-for-nothing profligates are a fitting exam- 
ple of the human refuse and scum which lately gravitated 
round Sir John ; and they serve the double purpose of car- 
rying into the new scenes the memory of the King's former 
associations, and also of evincing the King's present severity 
and rectitude of discipline. They thus help to bridge over 
the chasm, which might else appear something too abrupt, 
between what the hero was as Prince of Wales and what he 
is as King : therewithal their presence shows him acting out 
the purpose, which he avowed at our first meeting with him, 



INTRODUCTION. 1 3 

of imitating the Sun, who causes himself to be more won- 
dered at 

By breaking through the foul and ugly mists 
And vapours that did seem to strangle him. 

That some such clouds of vileness, exhaled from the old 
haunts of his discarded life, should still hang about his path, 
was natural in the course of things, and may be set down as 
a judicious point in the drama. 

The Boy who figures as servant to " these three swashers" 
is probably the same whom we met with as Page to Falstaff 
in the preceding play. His arch and almost unconscious 
shrewdness of remark was even then a taking feature ; and it 
encouraged the thought of his having enough healthy keen- 
ness of perception to ward off the taints and corruptions that 
beset him.— And he now translates the follies and vices of his 
employers into apt themes of sagacious and witty reflection, 
touching at every point the very pith of their distinctive fea- 
tures. The mixture of penetration and simplicity with which 
he moralizes their pretentious nothings is very charming. 
Thus Pistol's turbulent vapourings draw from him the sage 
remark, "I did never know so full a voice issue from so 
empty a heart : but the saying is true, The empty vessel 7?iakes 
the greatest sound. Bardolph and Nym had ten times more 
valour than this roaring Devil i' the old play, and they are both 
hang'd ; and so would this be, if he durst steal any thing 
adventurously." Shakespeare specially delights in thus en- 
dowing his children and youngsters with a kind of unsophis- 
ticated shrewdness, the free outcome of a native soundness 
that enables them to walk unhurt amid the contagions of bad 
example ; their own minds being kept pure, and even fur- 
thered in the course of manhood, by an instinctive oppug- 
nance to the shams and meannesses which beset their path. 



14 KING HENRY THE FIFTH. 

But the comic life of the drama is mainly centred in a 
very different group of persons. Fluellen, Jamy, and Mac- 
morris strike out an entirely fresh and original vein of en- 
tertainment ; and these, together with Bates and Williams, 
aptly represent the practical, working soldiership of the 
King's army. The conceited and loquacious Welshman, the 
tenacious and argumentative Scotchman, the hot and im- 
pulsive Irishman, with all whose nations the English have 
lately been at war, serve the further purpose of displaying 
how smoothly the recent national enmities have been recon- 
ciled, and all the parties drawn into harmonious co-operation, 
by the King's inspiring nobleness of character, and the 
catching enthusiasm of his enterprise. All three are as brave 
as lions, thoroughly devoted to the cause, and mutually emu- 
lous of doing good service ; each entering into the work with 
as much heartiness as if his own nation were at the head of 
the undertaking. All of them too are completely possessed 
with the spirit of the occasion, where "honour's thought 
reigns solely in the breast of every man" ; and as there is no 
swerving from the line of earnest warlike purpose in quest of 
any sport or pastime, so the amusement we have of them 
results purely from the spontaneous working-out of their 
innate peculiarities ; and while making us laugh they at the 
same time win our respect, their very oddities serving to set 
off their substantial manliness. 

Fluellen is pedantic, pragmatical, and somewhat queru- 
lous, but withal a thoroughly honest and valiant soul. He 
loves to hear himself discourse touching " the true discipline 
of the wars," and about " Alexander the Pig," -and how " For- 
tune is painted plind, with a muffler afore her eyes, to signify 
to you that Fortune is plind ; and she is painted also with a 
wheel, to signify to you, which is the moral of it, that she is 



INTRODUCTION. 1 5 

turning, and inconstant, and mutability, and variation " : but 
then he is also prompt to own that " Captain Jamy is a mar- 
vellous falorous gentleman, and of great expedition and 
knowledge in th' aunchient wars" ; and that "he will main- 
tain his argument as well as any military man in the 'orld, in 
the disciplines of the pristine wars of the Romans." He is 
indeed rather easily gulled into thinking Pistol a hero, on 
hearing him " utter as prave 'ords at the pridge as you shall 
see in a Summer's day": this lapse, however, is amply 
squared when he cudgels the swagger out of the " counterfeit 
rascal," and persuades him to eat the leek, and then makes 
him accept a groat to " heal his proken pate " ; which is one 
of Shakespeare's raciest and most spirited comic scenes. 
Herewith should be noted also his cool discretion in putting 
up with the mouthing braggart's insolence, because the time 
and place did not properly allow his resenting it on the spot : 
and when he calls on him to " eat his victuals," and gives 
him the cudgel for sauce to it ; and tells him, " You called 
me yesterday mountain-squire, but I will make you to-day a 
squire of low degree " ; there is no mistaking the timber he 
is made of. 

On another occasion, Fluellen sharply reproves one of his 
superior officers for loud-talking in the camp at night : "If 
you would take the pains but to examine the wars of Pom- 
pey the Great, you shall find, I warrant you, that there is 
no tiddle-taddle nor pibble-pabble in Pompey's camp " : and 
the King, overhearing this reproof, hits the white of his char- 
acter when he says to himself, 

Though it appear a little out of fashion, 

There is much care and valour in the Welshman. 

But perhaps the man's most characteristic passage is in his 



l6 KING HENRY THE FIFTH. 

plain and downright style of speech to the King himself: 
the latter referring to the place of his own birth, which was 
in Wales, addresses him as " my good countryman," and he 
replies, " I am your Majesty's countryman, I care not who 
know it ; I will confess it to all the 'orld : I need not be 
ashamed of your Majesty, praised be Got, so long as your 
Majesty is an honest man." On the whole, Fluellen is a 
capital instance of the Poet's consideration for the rights of 
manhood irrespective of rank or title or any adventitious 
regards. Though a very subordinate person in the drama, 
there is more wealth of genius shown in the delineation of 
him than of any other except the King. 

Characteristics of the King. 

The delineation of the King has something of peculiar 
interest from its personal relation to the author. It em- 
bodies the Poet's ethics of character. Here, for once, he 
relaxes his strictness of dramatic self-reserve, and lets us 
directly into his own conception of what is good and noble : 
in his other portraits we have the art and genius of the poet ; 
here, along with this, is also reflected the conscience and 
heart of the man. 

The King is the most complex and many-sided of all 
Shakespeare's heroes, with the one exception of Hamlet ; 
if indeed even Hamlet ought to be excepted. He is great 
alike in thought, in purpose, and in performance ; all the 
parts of his character drawing together perfectly, as if there 
were no foothold for distraction among them. Truth, sweet- 
ness, and terror build in him equally. And he loves the 
plain presence of natural and homely characters, where all 
is genuine, forthright, and sincere. Even in his sternest 



INTRODUCTION. 1 7 

actions as king, he shows, he cannot help showing, the mo- 
tions of a brotherly heart : there is a certain grace and 
suavity in his very commands, causing them to be felt as 
benedictions. To be frank, open, and affable with all sorts 
of persons, so as to call their very hearts into their mouths, 
and move them to be free, plain-spoken, and simple in his 
company, as losing the sense of inferior rank in an equality 
of manhood, — all this is both an impulse of nature and a 
rule of judgment with him. Nothing contents him short 
of getting heart to heart with those about or beneath him : 
all conventional starch, all official forms, all the facings of 
pride, that stand in the way of this, he breaks through ; 
yet he does this with so much natural dignity and ease, 
that those who see it are scarcely sensible of it : they feel a 
peculiar graciousness in him, but know not why. And in 
his practical sense of things, as well as in his theory, inward 
merit is the only basis of kingly right and rule : yet he is 
so much aUhome in this thought, that he never emphasizes 
it at all ; because he understands full well that such merit, 
where it really lives, will best make its way when left to 
itself, and that any boasting or putting on airs about it can 
only betray a lack of it. 

Thus the character of this crowned gentleman stands 
together in that native harmony and beauty which is most 
adorned in being unadorned. And his whole behaviour 
appears to be governed by an instinctive sense of this. 
There is no simulation, no disguise, no study for appear- 
ances, about him : all got-up dignities, any thing put on for 
effect, whatever savours in the least of sham or shoddy, is 
his aversion ; and the higher the place where it is used, the 
more he feels it to be out of place ; his supreme delight 
being to seem just what he is, and to be just what he seems. 



18 KING HENRY THE FIFTH. 

In other words, he has a steadfast, living, operative faith in 
the plenipotence of truth : he wants nothing better : he 
scorns to rely on any thing less : this is the soul of all his 
thoughts and designs. The sense of any discrepancy be- 
tween his inward and his outward parts would be a torment 
to him. Hence his unaffected heartiness in word and deed. 
Whatsoever he cannot enter into with perfect wholeness and 
integrity of mind, that he shrinks from having any thing to 
do with. Accordingly in all that flows from him we feel the 
working of a heart so full that it cannot choose but overflow. 
Perhaps indeed he has never heard it said that " an honest 
man's the noblest work of God " ; perhaps he has never 
even thought it consciously ; but it is the core of his prac- 
tical thinking ; he lives it, and therefore knows it by heart, 
if not by head. 

This explains what are deemed the looser parts of his 
conduct while Prince of Wales. For his character, through 
all its varieties of transpiration in the three plays where he 
figures, is perfectly coherent and all of a piece. In the air 
of the Court there was something, he hardly knew what, that 
cut against his grain; he could not take to it. His father 
was indeed acting a noble part, and was acting it nobly ; at 
least the Prince thought so : still he could not but feel that 
his father was acting a part. Dissimulation, artifice, official 
fiction, attentiveness to show, and all that course of dealing 
where less is meant than meets the ear, were too much the 
style and habit of the place : policy was the method, astute- 
ness the force, of the royal counsels ; and plain truth was 
not deep enough for one who held it so much his interest 
to hoodwink the time. Even the virtue there cherished was 
in great part a made-up, surface virtue ; at the best there 
was a spice of disingenuousness in it. In short, the whole 



INTRODUCTION. 19 

administration of the State manifestly took its shape and tone 
from the craft of the King, not from the heart of the man. 

To the Prince's keen eye all this was evident, to his 
healthy feelings it was offensive ; he craved the fellowship 
of something more fresh and genuine ; and was glad to get 
away from it, and play with simpler and honester natures, 
where he could at least be frank and true, and where his 
spirits might run out in natural freedom. " Covering discre- 
tion with a coat of folly"" was better in his sense of things 
than to have his native sensibilities smothered under such 
a varnish of solemn plausibility and factitious constraint. 
Even his inborn rectitude found a more congenial climate 
where no virtue at all was professed, and where its claims 
were frankly sported off, than where there was so much of 
sinister craft and indirection mixed up with it : the reckless 
and spontaneous outpourings of moral looseness, nay, the 
haunts of open-faced profligacy, so they had some sparkling 
of wit and raciness of humour in them, were more to his 
taste than the courts of refined hypocrisy and dissimulation, 
where politicians played at hide-and-seek with truth, and 
tied up their schemes with shreds of Holy Writ. 

His Intercourse with Falstaff. 

Still it should be noted withal, that during his intercourse 
with Falstaff the Prince was all the while growing better, 
whereas Falstaff was daily growing worse. This was because 
the former was secretly intent on picking out the good, the 
latter the evil, of that intercourse. With the one it was a 
process of free and generous self-abandon j with the other, 
of greedy and sensual self-seeking. So the Prince went into 
the Gads-hill robbery merely as a frolic ; the jest of the thing 



20 KING HENRY THE FIFTH. 

was what he looked to; and he took care to have all the 
money paid back to the losers. On the other hand, Fal- 
staff's sole thought was to snatch the means of self-indul- 
gence ; and so the act was all of a piece with his cheating 
the Hostess out of her hard-earned cash by practising on 
her simple-hearted kindness ; and with his laying a plot to 
swindle Shallow, expressly on the ground that, " if the young 
dace be a bait for the old pike, I see no reason in the law 
of Nature but I may snap at him." 

And it seems to me a very mark-worthy point in that 
great delineation, that while Falstaff was thus preparing for 
those darker villainies, the Prince was silently feeding the 
nobler mind which in due time prompted an utter repudia- 
tion of Sir John. At all events, whatever perils there might 
be in such companionship, I must needs think that even in 
the haunts of Eastcheap, as Shakespeare orders them, the 
Prince had a larger and richer school of practical wisdom ; 
that he could there learn more of men, of moral good and evil, 
could get a clearer insight of the strengths and weaknesses 
of the human heart, and touch more springs of noble thought 
and purpose, than in any college of made-up appearances, 
where truth is so adulterated with cunning, that the mind 
insensibly loses its simplicity, and sucks in perversion under 
the names of dignity and prudence. 

Accordingly, I suppose the Prince's course in this matter 
to have grown mainly from the one pregnant fact, that his 
tongue could not endure the taste of falsehood, nor his hand 
the touch of fraud. And because, from his fulness of inward 
worth, he must and would be true, and rejoiced in what was 
simple and candid and direct, and hated all disguise and 
pretence and make-believe, therefore his mind on all sides 
moved in contact with the truth and life of things. Thus 



INTRODUCTION. 21 

the dangerous experiences he had with revellers and make- 
sports were to him a discipline of virtue and wisdom ; he 
found at least more of natural sap in them than in the walk- 
ing costumes from which they withdrew him : the good that 
was in them he could retain, the ill he could discard, because 
the former had something in him to stick upon, which the 
latter had not : and he knew that the noblest fruit would 
grow larger and ripen better in the generous soil where weeds 
also grew, than in the dry enclosures where nature and soul- 
power were repressed, to make room for craft-power and 
artifice. Yet even then, as often as he had any manly work 
to do, an answering spirit of manliness was forthwith kin- 
dled within him, and the course of riot and mirth was 
instantly shaken off as at the touch of a stronger affinity. To 
apply one of Bacon's fine sayings, when once his mind had 
placed before it noble aims, it was immediately surrounded 
not only by the virtues, but by the gods. 

The Prince knew himself to be under a cloud of ill 
thoughts and surmises ; that he was held in slight esteem by 
his companions, his kindred, and his foes ; that even Pointz 
put a bad construction on his behaviour • that his brothers 
gave him up, and his father viewed him with reproach and 
distrust; that in the glory of Hotspur's deeds himself was 
quite eclipsed ; that every man was forethinking him a hope- 
less reprobate, and was shaking the head at the sound of his 
name : but all this did not appear to move him ; still he 
seemed unconcerned, and intent only on playing out his 
game ; untouched with compunctious visitings, and digesting 
his shames as quietly as if he were not aware of them. 

This seeming insensibility was because he had at bottom 
the strength of a good conscience, and a firm trust in the 
might of truth : "rotten opinion" did not inwardly gall him, 



22 KING HENRY THE FIFTH. 

because he felt sure that in due time he should raze it out, 
and was content to abide his time. He had tried himself in 
noble work, and knew how sweet was the conscience of hav- 
ing done it like a man, and also knew that his inner mind on 
this score was a profound secret to those about him : the 
imputation of certain faults did not worry him, because he 
knew it was not really deserved ; yet he was far from blam- 
ing others for it, because he also knew it seemed to be 
deserved ; and in his modest disdain of show he could qui- 
etly face the misconstructions of the hour, and remain true to 
himself in the calm assurance that all would come right in 
the end. But especially his course of life and the ill repute 
it drew upon him exempted him from the pestilence of lordly 
flatterers and buzzing sycophants ; and he might well deem 
the scenes of his mirth to be health and purity itself in com- 
parison with an atmosphere sweetened with that penetrating 
defilement : if there was a devil in the former, it was at least 
an undisguised devil ; which was vastly better than a devil 
sugared over so as to cheat the taste, and seduce the moral 
sentinels of the heart. 

His Moral Complexion. 

The character of Shakespeare's Henry the Fifth may 
almost be said to consist of piety, honesty, and modesty. 
And he embodies these qualities in their simplest and purest 
form ; all sitting so easy and natural in him that he thinks 
not of them. Then too, which is well worth the noting, 
they so draw and work together, that each may be affirmed 
of the others; that is, he is honest and modest in his piety, 
pious and modest in his honesty ; so that there is nothing 
obtrusive or showy in his acting of these virtues : being solid 
and true, they are therefore much within and little without, 



INTRODUCTION. 23 

and are perfectly free from any air of pretence or design. 
And all the other manly virtues gather upon him in the 
train of these ; while, as before remarked, at the centre of 
the whole stands a serene faith in the sufficiency of truth. 

The practical working of this choice composure is well 
shown in what happened at the killing of Hotspur. No 
sooner had Prince Henry slain the valiant Percy than he 
fell at once to doing him the offices of pious and tender rev- 
erence ; and the rather, forasmuch as no human eye witnessed 
the act. He knew that the killing of Hotspur would be 
enough of itself to wipe out all his shames, and " restore him 
into the good thoughts of the world again" ; nevertheless he 
cheerfully resigned the credit of the deed to Falstaff. He 
knew that such a surreptitious honour would help his old 
companion in the way wherein he was most capable and 
needy of help ; while, for himself, he could forego the fame 
of it in the secret pledge it gave him of other and greater 
achievements : the inward conscience thereof sufficed him ; 
and the sense of having done a generous thing was dearer 
to him than the beguiling sensation of " riding in triumph 
on men's tongues." This noble superiority to the breath of 
present applause is what most clearly evinces the solidity 
and inwardness of his virtue. 

Yet in one of his kingliest moments he tells us, " If it 
be a sin to covet honour, I am the most offending soul 
alive." But honour is with him in the highest sense a social 
conscience, and the rightful basis of self-respect : he deems 
it a good chiefly as it makes a man clean and strong within, 
and not as it dwells in the fickle breath of others. As for 
that conventional figment which small souls make so much 
ado about, he cares little for it, as knowing that it is often 
got without merit, and lost without deserving. Thus the 



24 KING HENRY THE FIFTH. 

honour he covets is really to deserve the good thoughts of 
men : the inward sense of such desert is enough : if what 
is fairly his due in that kind be withheld by them, the loss 
is theirs, not his. 

Another characteristic article of his creed is that "in 
peace there's nothing so becomes a man as modest stillness 
and humility." In his former days, during the intervals of 
high work, he was a spendthrift of his time, and cared mainly 
to pass it away from the pressure of irksome and benumbing 
constraint ; but, now that high work claims all his hours, 
" ease from this noble miser of his time no moment steals " ; 
and he pushes ahead as one , 

Who, not content that former worth stand fast, 
Looks forward, persevering to the last, 
From well to better, daily self-surpast. 

In his clear rectitude and piety of purpose, he will not go 
to war with France till he believes religiously and in his 
conscience that he has a sacred right to the French crown, 
and that it would be a sin against the divinely-appointed 
order of human society not to prosecute that claim. This 
point settled, he goes about the task as if his honour and 
salvation hung upon it. And in putting it through he is at 
once collected and eager, gentle and terrible ; full alike of 
warlike energy and of bland repose : his faith in the justice 
of his cause and in the Divine support renders him both 
earnest and tranquil ; and he alternates with majestic grace 
between the stirrings of his plain homely nature and of his 
kingly heroic spirit, or blends them both in one as the oc- 
casion speaks. 

The King, however, has one conspicuous lapse from mod- 
esty. The pompous brags of the French spouted through 



INTRODUCTION. 2$ 

their Herald betray him into a brief but rather high 
strain of bragging, as if he had caught the disease of them : 
but he presently catches himself in it and chides himself for 
it : the words nauseate him, and he forthwith spits them 
out ; and he is disgusted with himself till he has washed out 
the taste of them with repentance. So that the result just 
proves how sound and sincere that virtue is in him. At the 
same time, with characteristic impulsive frankness, he dis- 
closes to the enemy the badness of his own plight : 

My people are with sickness much enfeebled ; 
My numbers lessen'd, and those few I have 
Almost no better than so many French. 

Nor is this a thoughtless act ; for in the same breath he owns 
that " 'tis no wisdom to confess so much unto an enemy of 
craft and vantage " ; but then it is the simple truth, and 
truth is good enough for him : moreover his frankness, 
whether he means it so or not, helps him in the end ; for it 
has the effect of dissolving still further the bands of order 
among the French, making them more negligent, presump- 
tuous, and giddy than ever. 

Nor is he wanting in the qualities of a discreet and pru- 
dent general. His quick and circumspective eye takes in 
all the parts of military duty. In his method, cool strategic 
judgment goes hand in hand with daring impetuous cour- 
age. He understands, none better, the requirements of 
sound policy in war. Justice and humanity to non-com- 
batants are cardinal points of discipline with him, and this 
not only as according with his temper, but as helpers to 
success. Besides, he looks upon the French people as his 
own, and therefore will not have them wronged or oppressed 
by his soldiers. Bardolph and Nym are hanged for theft 



26 KING HENRY THE FIFTH. 

and sacrilege, and he " would have all such offenders so cut 
off"; and he gives express charge that "nothing be taken 
but paid for ; none of the French upbraided or abused in 
disdainful language " ; his avowed reason being, that "when 
lenity and cruelty play for a kingdom, the gentler gamester 
is the soonest winner." 

His Prank Human-Heartedness. 

But, with all his stress of warlike ardour and intentness, 
his mind full of cares, thoughtful, provident, self-mastered 
as he is, his old frank and childlike playfulness and love of 
harmless fun still cling to him, and mingle genially in his 
working earnestness. Even in his gravest passages, with but 
one or two exceptions, as in his address to the conspirant 
lords, there is a dash of jocose humour that is charmingly 
reminiscent of his most jovial and sportive hours. When 
" consideration like an angel came, and whipp'd the offend- 
ing Adam out of him," it put no stiffness or sourness into 
his manners, nor had any effect towards withering him up 
from being still the prince of good fellows. His spirits are 
none the less brisk and sprightly for being bound in with 
the girdle of temperance and conscientious rectitude. He 
can be considerate and playful too ; self-restrained and run- 
ning over with fresh hilarity at the same time. 

Perhaps the fairest display of his whole varied make-up 
is in the night before the battle of Agincourt, when, wrap- 
ping himself in a borrowed cloak, he goes unrecognized 
about the camp, allaying the scruples, cheering the hearts, 
and bracing the courage of his men. His free and kindly 
nature is so unsubdued and fresh, that he craves to be a 
man among his soldiers, and talk familiarly with them face 
to face, which he knows could not be if he appeared among 



INTRODUCTION. 2J 

them as King. Here too his love of plain unvarnished 
truth asserts itself: he does not attempt to disguise from 
himself or from them the huge perils of their situation : he 
owns that the odds are fearfully against them ; because he 
trusts that all this, instead of appalling their hearts, will rather 
serve, as indeed it does, to knit up their energies to a more 
resolute and strenuous effort. The greater the danger they 
are in, the greater should their courage be, — that is the 
principle he acts upon, and he has faith that they will act 
upon it too : he would have them know the worst of their 
condition, because he doubts not that they will be all the 
surer to meet it like men, dying gloriously, if die they must ; 
and he so frames his speech that it works in them as an 
inspiration to that effect. Speaking to them of himself in 
the third person, he says, " I think the King is but a man, 
as I am : the violet smells to him as it doth to me ; all his 
senses have but human conditions : and though his affections 
are higher mounted than ours, yet, when they stoop, they 
stoop with the like wing " : and on his conscience he assures 
them of what is indeed true, that the King " would not wish 
himself anywhere but where he is." From the overweening 
confidence of the French, leading to profanity and dissolute- 
ness, he gathers the lessons of an heroic piety : 

There is some soul of goodness in things evil, 
Would men observingly distil it out ; 
For our bad neighbour makes us early stirrers, 
Which is both healthful and good husbandry: 
Besides, they are our outward consciences, 
And preaches to us all ; admonishing 
That we should 'dress us fairly for our end, 
Thus may we gather honey from the weed, 
And make a moral of the Devil himself. 

I have elsewhere observed how Shakespeare used the 



28 KING HENRY THE FIFTH. 

Choruses in this play for the purpose of unbosoming him- 
self in regard to his favourite hero. His own personal sense 
of the King's nocturnal doings is most unequivocally pro- 
nounced in the Chorus to the fourth Act : 

For forth he goes, and visits all his host ; 
Bids them good morrow with a modest smile, 
And calls them brothers, friends, and countrymen. 
Upon his royal face there is no note 
How dread an army hath enrounded him ; 
Nor doth he dedicate one jot of colour 
Unto the weary and all-watched night ; 
But freshly looks, and overbears attaint 
With cheerful semblance and sweet majesty ; 
That every wretch, pining and pale before, 
Beholding him, plucks comfort from his looks : 
A largess universal, like the Sun, 
His liberal eye doth give to every one, 
Thawing cold fear ; that mean and gentle all 
Behold, as may unworthiness define, 
A little touch of Harry in the night. 

But the best of it is, that all the deep seriousness, not to 
say gloom, of the occasion does not repress his native jocu- 
larity of spirit. John Bates and Michael Williams, whose 
hearts are indeed braver and better than their words, speak 
out their doubts and fears with all plainness ; and he falls 
at once into a strain of grave and apt discourse that soon 
satisfies their minds, which have been rendered somewhat 
querulous by the plight they are in ; and, when the blunt 
and downright Williams pushes his freedom into something 
of sauciness, he meets it with bland good-humour, and melts 
out the man's crustiness by contriving quite in his old style 
for carrying on a practical joke ; so that we have a right taste 
of the sportive Prince in the most trying and anxious passage 
of the King. In the same spirit, afterwards, when the jest is 



INTRODUCTION. 29 

coming to the upshot, as it is likely to breed some bloody 
work, he takes care that no harm shall be done : he turns it 
into an occasion for letting the men know whom they had 
talked so freely with : he has himself invited their freedom 
of speech, because in his full-souled frankness of nature he 
really loves to be inward with them, and to taste the honest 
utterance of their minds : and when, upon that disclosure, 
Williams still uses his former plainness, he likes him the bet- 
ter for it ; and winds up the jest by rewarding his supposed 
offence with a glove full of crowns ; thus ending the whole 
with a stroke of genuine magnanimity, such as cannot fail to 
secure the undivided empire of his soldiers' hearts : hence- 
forth they will make nothing of dying for such a noble fel- 
low, whose wish clearly is, not to overawe them by any 
studied dignity, but to reign within them by his manliness 
of soul, and by making them feel that he is their best friend. 

His Wooing of Catharine. 

The same merry, frolicsome humour comes out again in 
his wooing of the Princess Catharine. It is a real holiday 
of the spirits with him ; his mouth overruns with play ; he 
cracks jokes upon his own person and his speaking of 
French ; and sweetens his way to the lady's heart by genial 
frankness and simplicity of manner ; wherein we relish nothing 
of the King indeed, but, which is better, much of the man. 
With the open and true-hearted pleasantry of a child, he 
laughs through his courtship ; yet we feel all the while a 
deep undercurrent of seriousness beneath his laughter ; and 
there is to our sense no lapse from dignity in his behaviour, 
because nothing is really so dignified as when a man forgets 
his dignity in the overflowings of a right-noble and generous 



30 KING HENRY THE FIFTH. 

heart. The King loves men who are better than their words ; 
and it is his nature to be better than he speaks : this is the 
artless disguise of modesty through which true goodness has 
its most effective disclosure ; while, on the other hand, we 
naturally distrust the beauty that is not something shy of let- 
ting its charms be seen. — I must add that, bearing in mind 
the well-known character and history of King Henry the 
Sixth, we cannot fail to take it as a signal stroke of irony 
when the hero, in his courtship, speaks to the Princess of 
their "compounding a boy, half French, half English, that 
shall go to Constantinople, and take the Turk by the beard." 
This is one of those highly artful, yet seemingly-spontaneous 
sallies with which the Poet delights to play out his deep 
insight of character, and to surprise or to laugh his readers 
into a knowledge of themselves. — It is also to be noted that, 
notwithstanding the hero's sportive mood in the wooing, 
when he comes to deal with the terms of peace, where he 
thinks the honour of his nation is involved, his mood is very 
different : then he purposely forgot the King in the man ; 
now he resolutely forgets the man in the King ; and will not 
budge a hair from the demands which he holds to be the 
right of his people. The dignity of his person he freely 
leaves to take care of itself; the dignity of his State is to him 
a sacred thing, and he will sooner die than compromise it a 
jot. 

His Bearing as a Christian. 

In respect of piety, the King exemplifies whatever was 
best in the teaching and practice of his time. Nor, upon 
the whole, is it altogether certain that any thing better has 
arisen since his time. What appears as modesty in his deal- 
ings with men here takes the form of humility, deep and 



INTRODUCTION. 3 1 

unaffected ; he thinks, speaks, and acts in the fear of God : 
this trait is indeed the central point, the very core of the 
whole delineation. Shakespeare found the King highly ex- 
tolled in Holinshed for his piety at home, and throughout 
his campaigns ; he accepted the matter most heartily, but 
construed it in a truly liberal spirit, and wrought it pur- 
posely into the brightest feature of his hero. Thus at the 
outset the King's demeanour is marked by calm, unobtrusive 
notes of severe conscientiousness : he is above all anxious 
that his enterprise have the Divine approval ; nor are his 
scruples on this score any the less genuine, that he does not 
assume to be himself the sole ultimate judge of right and 
duty, but refers it to the judgment of those who stand to 
him as authorized interpreters of the Divine will. Then he 
takes it as a direct interposal of Providence, and a gracious 
mark of the Divine favour, that the " dangerous treason, 
lurking in his way," is brought to light. And all through he 
takes care to instruct himself and to have his men instructed, 
that they are to place their sole reliance in God's help, to 
seek that help by piety and rectitude of life, and not to 
arrogate to themselves the merit of success, nor get puffed 
with a conceit of their own sufficiency. On the eve of 
the battle, he remembers, from his father's own mouth, the 
wrongs his father did in compassing the crown, and relig- 
iously fears lest the sins of the father in this case be visited 
on the son : in this pious and penitential thought he craves 
to be alone, that " he and his bosom may debate awhile " ; 
and then, after reciting some of the " good and pious works " 
which he has done to atone the fault, he adds, with heartfelt 
humility, " More will I do ; though all that I can do is noth- 
ing worth." And, while the French are revelling out the 
night in vanity and insolence, he has his soldiers put upon 



32 KING HENRY THE FIFTH. 

fortifying their courage, and seeking to bring good out of 
evil, by solemn acts of repentance and prayer. So again, 
after the great victory, which he in his pious solicitude is 
slow to credit the report of, his first word is, " Praised be 
God, and not our strength, for it ! " and later, when the 
results of the battle are fully ascertained, " O God, Thy arm 
was here, and not to us, but to Thy arm alone ascribe we 
all." And his sincerity in all this is approved by the order 
he takes that there be no voice of boasting or arrogance on 
account of what has been done, and that the Divine gift of 
victory be devoutly acknowledged in " all holy rites." How 
the Poet himself regarded these marks of Christian piety 
and humility in his hero, well appears from the account 
given of the King's reception at London, in the Chorus to 
Act v. : 

Whereas his lords desire him to have borne 
His bruised helmet and his bended sword 
Before him through the city, he forbids it, 
Being free from vainness and self-glorious pride ; 
Giving full trophy, signal, and ostent, 
Quite from himself to God. 

It is true, some of the King's acts of religion are in a 
style that is now out of date, and that was mostly out of 
date in England when the play was written : but this no- 
wise detracts from their genuineness or from his integrity 
of heart in doing them. In the fifteenth century, piety 
and chivalry, which latter was then at its height, went hand 
in hand, forming a combination so foreign to our modes of 
thought, that we can hardly enter into it at all. That time 
is now generally, perhaps justly, regarded as an age of 
popular bigotry and of clerical simony ; yet the Poet's hero 
is clearly no bigot, and is as clearly above the suspicion 
of unclean hands ; and, whatever may be thought of his 



INTRODUCTION. 33 

religious modes, his Christian spirit is- as lofty and pure as 
any age has witnessed in men of his place. 

His Civil Administration. 

Much the same is to be said touching the civil adminis- 
tration of this King. It is easy for us to observe that, 
instead of making useless conquests in France, he had 
better stayed at home, and spent his care in furthering the 
arts of peace, and been content with giving his people the 
benefit of a just and unambitious government. But what 
we call a liberal, humane, and judicious policy of State was 
in no sort the thing for that time. All men's ideas of great- 
ness and heroism ran in the channels of war and conquest : 
to make the people thrifty and happy by wise laws, was 
nowhere a mark of public honour and applause ; and no 
nation was then held to have any rights that other nations 
were bound to respect. Nor, after all our fine words and 
high pretensions, are the nations of our time so clear in this 
regard, but that those older nations may still put in some 
claims to respect, and may even hold up their heads in our 
presence. It is enough that on all these points King Henry 
the Fifth, as Shakespeare draws him, embodies whatever was 
noblest in the mind and heart of his time ; though it seems 
hardly worth the while, even if it be true, to repeat the 
rather threadbare saying, that his faults were those of the 
age, while his virtues were those of the man. At all events, 
to insist, as some have done, on judging him by our stand- 
ard of policy and wisdom, is too absurd or too wrong-headed 
to deserve any laboured exposure. 



34 KING HENRY THE FIFTH. 



General Reflections. 



In respect of proper dramatic interest and effect, this 
play is far inferior to King Henry the Fourth ; nor does it 
rank very high in the list of Shakespeare's achievements : 
but in respect of wisdom and poetry and eloquence it is 
among his very best. The Choruses are replete with the 
finest lyrical inspiration ; and I know of nothing that sur- 
passes them in vividness, of imagery,, or in potency to kindle 
and electrify the reader's imaginative forces. The King's 
speeches to his soldiers at Harfleur and to the Governor and 
citizens of that town, in Act iii. ; his reflections on ceremony, 
and his speech to Westmoreland just before the battle of 
Agincourt, and Exeter's account of the deaths of York and 
Suffolk, all in Act iv. ; and Burgundy's speech in favour of 
peace, in Act v. ; all these may be cited as perfect models 
in their kind, at once eloquent and poetical in the highest 
degree. Campbell the poet aptly remarks of them, " It 
was said of ^Eschylus, that he composed his Seven Chiefs 
against Thebes under the inspiration of Mars himself. If 
Shakespeare's Henry the Fifth had been written for the 
Greeks, they would have paid him the same compliment." 
Nor must I omit to mention the Archbishop's illustration 
from the commonwealth of bees in Act i. ; which has been 
justly noted as "full of the most exquisite imagery and 
music. The art employed in transforming the whole scene 
of the hive into a resemblance of humanity is a perfect 
study ; every successive object, as it is brought forward, 
being invested with its characteristic attributes." 

I have to confess that in one material respect, at least, this 
play is not altogether such as I could wish. The French are 
palpably caricatured, and the caricature is not in a spirit of 



INTRODUCTION. 35 

perfect fairness and candour : it savours too much of run- 
ning an enemy down. The Poet's English prejudices, hon- 
est as they were, are something too strongly pronounced. 
Frederick Schlegel well observes that "the feeling by which 
Shakespeare seems to have been most connected with ordi- 
nary men is that of nationality " ; but in this case his nation- 
ality is not so tolerant and generous as his other plays would 
lead us to expect ; which imparts to the workmanship some 
want of the right artistic calmness and equipoise. It is true 
that in the hero's time the French people and government 
were in a most deplorable condition ; the King insane, the 
Dauphin frivolous and vain, the nobility split into reckless 
and tearing factions, and the whole nation bordering upon a 
state of anarchy ; insomuch that they may have well de- 
served the rough discipline Henry gave them ; and perhaps 
nothing less would have sufficed to exorcise the evil spirit 
out of them, and put them in training for better days : but 
all this does not justify the braggart, mouth-stretching per- 
siflage and insolence which the Poet ascribes to them. It is 
also true that in these points he renders them very much as 
he found them described in the Chronicles ; but the regards 
of Art as well as of cool justice should have softened away 
those satirical, distorting, and vituperative lines of descrip- 
tion : Shakespeare ought to have seen the French with his 
own eyes, and not with those of the old chroniclers. Gervi- 
nus suggests that a jealous patriotic feeling may have influ- 
enced the Poet in this matter. The great Henry the Fourth, 
probably the most accomplished statesman and wisest ruler 
of his time, was then on the throne of France. And the Ger- 
man critic thinks that Shakespeare may have had it in mind 
to dash the enthusiasm of his French contemporaries about 
their king, by showing an English Henry who was his equal 



36 KING HENRY THE FIFTH. 

in greatness and originality : but he rightly notes that the 
Poet's hero would have appeared still more noble, if his 
antagonists had been made to seem less despicable. 



KING HENRY THE FIFTH, 



PERSONS REPRESENTED. 



King Henry the Fifth. 
John, Duke of Bedford, \ 



his 
("Brothers. 



Humphrey, Duke of Glos 
ter, 

Thomas Beaufort, Duke of Exeter, 
his Uncle. 

Edward Plantagenet, Duke of 
York. 

Henry Chicheley, Archbishop of 
Canterbury. 

John Fordham, Bishop of Ely. 

Earls of Salisbury, Westmore- 
land, and Warwick. 

Richard, Earl of Cambridge, ^ Q on . 
spira- 
tors. 



Henry Lord Scroop, 
Sir Thomas Grey, 
Sir Thomas Erping- 

ham, 
Gower, Fluellen, 
Macmorris, and Jamy 
Lords, Ladies, Officers, French and 



Officers in 

- the King's 
Army. 



Bates, Court, Williams, Soldiers 
in the same. 

Pistol, Nym, Bardolph, also Sol- 
diers. 

A Boy, Servant to them. A Herald. 

Chorus. 

Charles VI., King of France. 

Louis, the Dauphin. 

Dukes of Burgundy, Orleans, 

and Bourbon. 
Constable of France. 
Rambures and Grandpre, Lords. 
MOUNTJOY, a French Herald. 
Governor of Harfleur. Ambassadors 

to England. 

Isabel, Queen of France. 
Catharine, Daughter of Charles. 
Alice, a Lady attending her. 
Mrs. Pistol, late Mrs. Quickly. 
English Soldiers, Messengers, and 



Attendants. 
SCENE. — At the beginning of the play, in England; afterwards, in France. 



PROLOGUE. 

Enter Chorus. 



Chor. for a Muse of fire, that would ascend 
The brightest heaven of invention, 
A kingdom for a stage, princes to act, 



38 KING HENRY THE FIFTH. PROLOGUE. 

And monarchs to behold the swelling scene ! 

Then should the warlike Harry, like himself, 

Assume the port of Mars ; and at his heels, 

Leash'd-in like hounds, should famine, sword, and fire, 

Crouch for employment. 1 But pardon, gentles all, 

The flat unraised spirits that have dared 

On this unworthy scaffold to bring forth 

So great an object : can this cockpit 2 hold 

The vasty fields of France ? or may we cram 

Within this wooden O the very casques 3 

That did affright the air of Agincourt? 

O, pardon ! since a crooked figure may 

Attest in little place a million ; 

And let us, ciphers to this great accompt, 

On your imaginary 4 forces work. 

Suppose within the girdle of these walls 

Are now confined two mighty monarchies, 

Whose high-upreared and abutting fronts 

1 Readers may like to be told that the image is of three eager hounds 
held back with a leash or strap, till the huntsman sees the time has come 
for letting them fly at the game. The Poet has repeated allusions to this 
old warlike trio. So in Julius Ccesar,'\\\. i: "And Caesar's spirit, ranging 
for revenge, shall in these confines with a monarch's voice cry Havoc/ and 
let slip the dogs of war." 

2 A cockpit was a small area enclosed for cocks to fight in. The pit of a 
theatre was the space immediately in front of the stage. The occupants of 
it had nothing between their feet and the ground ; hence were sometimes 
called " groundlings." In the text, however, cockpit seems to be put for the 
stage itself. 

3 The Wooden O was the Globe Theatre on the Bankside, which was 
circular within. — "The very casques" is, "so ?nuch as the casques," or 
" merely the casques." So in The Taming of the Shrew : " Thou false 
deluding slave, that feed'st me with the very name of meat." 

4 Imaginary for imaginative ; the passive form with the active sense. 
An usage occurring continually in these plays. 



SCENE I. KING HENRY THE FIFTH. 39 

The perilous narrow ocean parts asunder : 

Piece-out our imperfections with your thoughts ; 

Into a thousand parts divide one man, 

And make imaginary puissance ; 

Think, when we talk of horses, that you see them 

Printing their proud hoofs i' the receiving earth ; 

For 'tis your thoughts that now must deck our kings, 

Carry them here and there ; jumping o'er times, 

Turning th' accomplishment of many years 

Into an hour-glass : for the which supply, 

Admit me chorus to this History ; 5 

Who, prologue-like, your humble patience pray, 

Gently to hear, kindly to judge, our play. [Exit. 



ACT I. 

Scene I. — London. An Ante-chamber in the King's Palace. 

Enter the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishop of Ely. 

Cant. My lord, I'll tell you : That self 1 bill is urged 
Which in th' eleventh year of the last King's reign 
Was like, and had indeed against us pass'd, 
But that the scambling 2 and unquiet time 

5 That is, " admit me as chorus to this History." A chorus, in one sense 
of the term, is an interpreter ; one who explains to the audience what might 
else be dark or unmeaning to them. — Supply, I take it, is here used in the 
sense of supplement or completion. So that " for the which supply " is equiv- 
alent to for the completing of which. 

1 Self for self-same ; a frequent usage. 

2 The more common form of this word is scrambling. — Question, in the 
next line, is discussion or consideration. 



40 KING HENRY THE FIFTH. ACT I. 

Did push it out of further question. 

Ely. But how, my lord, shall we resist it now? 

Cant. It must be thought on. If it pass against us, 
We lose the better half of our possessions ; 
For all the temporal lands, which men devout 
By testament have given to the Church, 
Would they strip from us ; being valued thus : 
As much as would maintain, to the King's honour, 
Full fifteen earls and fifteen hundred knights, 
Six thousand and two hundred good esquires ; 
And, to relief of lazars 3 and weak age, 
Of indigent faint souls past corporal toil, 
A hundred almshouses right well supplied ; 
And to the coffers of the King, besides, 
A thousand pounds by th' year : 4 thus runs the bill. 

Ely. This would drink deep. 

Cant. 'Twould drink the cup and all. 

Ely. But what prevention ? 

Cant. The King is full of grace and fair regard, 
And a true lover of the holy Church. 

Ely. The courses of his youth promised it not. 

Cant. The breath no sooner left his father's body, 
But that his wildness, mortified in him, 
Seem'd to die too ; yea, at that very moment, 
Consideration, like an angel, came, 
And whipp'd th' offending Adam out of him, 
Leaving his body as a paradise, 
'T envelop and contain celestial spirits. 
Never was such a sudden scholar made ; 

3 Lazars here means the same as in Paradise Lost, xi. 479: "A lazar- 
house it seem'd, wherein were laid numbers of all diseased." 

4 This is taken almost verbatim from Holinshed. 



SCENE I. KING HENRY THE FIFTH. 41 

Never came reformation in a flood, 

With such a heady current, scouring faults ; 

Nor never hydra-headed wilfulness 5 

So soon did lose his seat, and all at once, 

As in this King. 

Ely. We 're blessed in the change. 

Cant. Hear him but reason in divinity, 
And, all-admiring, with an inward wish 
You would desire the King were made a prelate ; 
Hear him debate of commonwealth affairs, 
You'd say it hath been all-in-all his study ; 
List his discourse of war, and you shall hear 
A fearful battle render'd you in music ; 
Turn him to any cause of policy, 
The Gordian knot of it he will unloose, 
Familiar as his garter : that, when he speaks, 
The air, a charter'd libertine, 6 is still, 
And the mute wonder lurketh in men's ears, 
To steal his sweet and honey'd sentences. 
So that the art and practic part of life 
Must be the mistress to his theoric : 7 

5 That is, a wilfulness with many heads, and which, like the hydra, as fast 
as the heads are cut off, puts forth new ones. So that " hydra-headed wilful- 
ness" is but a strong expression for freakishness or waywardness ; the char- 
acter of one who, drifting before his whims, is ever on some new tack, or is 
" every thing by turns, and nothing long." 

6 The air is called a " charter'd libertine," probably because it has by 
Nature a charter of exemption from restraint, or a prescriptive right to blow 
when and where it will, and cares no more for a king than for a beggar. 

" He must have drawn his theory, digested his order and method of 
thought, from the art and practice of life, instead of shaping the latter by 
the rules and measures of the former : which is strange, since he has never 
been seen in the way either of learning the things in question by experience, 
or of digesting the fruits of experience into theory. Practic and theoric, or 
practique and theorique, were the old spelling of practice and theory. 



42 KING HENRY THE FIFTH. 

Which is a wonder how his Grace should glean it, 

Since his addiction was to courses vain ; 

His companies 8 unletter'd, rude, and shallow ; 

His hours fill'd up with riots, banquets, sports ; 

And never noted in him any study, 

Any retirement, any sequestration 

From open haunts and popularity. 9 

Ely. The strawberry grows underneath the nettle, 
And wholesome berries thrive and ripen best 
Neighbour'd by fruit of baser quality : 
And so the Prince obscured his contemplation 
Under the veil of wildness ; 10 which, no doubt, 
Grew like the summer grass, fastest by night, 
Unseen, yet crescive in his faculty. 11 

Cant. It must be so ; for miracles are ceased ; 
And therefore we must needs admit the means 
How 12 things are perfected. 

Ely. But, my good lord, 

How now for mitigation of this bill 
Urged by the Commons ? Doth his Majesty 



8 Companies for companions. So in A Midsummer-Night's Dream, i. I : 
"Turn away our eyes, to seek new friends and stranger companies." 

9 Popularity meant familiarity with the common people, as well as popu- 
lar favour or applause. 

10 In Prince Henry's last speech, Act i. 2, / King Henry IV., he is repre- 
sented as deliberately proposing this course to himself, for reasons therein 
stated. So of Julius Caesar, " the greatest name in history," as Merivale 
calls him, it is said that in his earlier years he concealed his tremendous 
energy and power of application under such an exterior of thoughtless dis- 
sipation, that he was set down as a mere young trifler not worth minding. 

11 Crescive is the same as crescent, growing, or increasing. So in Hamlet, 
i. 3: "Nature, crescent, does not grow alone in thews and bulk. — His for 
its, as usual. 

J 2 The Poet not unfrequently thus uses how in the sense of by which, 



SCENE I. KING HENRY THE FIFTH. 43 

Incline to it, or no ? 

Cant. He seems indifferent ; 

Or, rather, swaying more upon our part 
Than cherishing th' exhibiters 13 against us : 
For I have made an offer to his Majesty, — 
Upon our Spiritual Convocation, 
And in regard of causes now in hand, 
Which I have open'd to his Grace at large, 
As touching France, — to give a greater sum 
Than ever at one time the Clergy yet 
Did to his predecessors part withal. 

Ely. How did this offer seem received, my lord ? 

Cant. With good acceptance of his Majesty : 
Save that there was not time enough to hear — 
As, I perceived, his Grace would fain have done — 
The several and unhidden passages 14 
Of his true titles to some certain dukedoms, 
And, generally, to the crown and seat of France, 
Derived from Edward, 15 his great-grandfather. 

Ely. What was th' impediment that broke this off? 

Cant. The French ambassador upon that instant 
Craved audience ; and the hour, I think, is come 
To give him hearing : is it four o'clock ? 

1 3 Exhibiters is movers, proposers, or prosecutors. So, in The Merry 
Wives, ii. i, Mrs. Page says, " I'll exhibit a Bill in the Parliament for the 

putting-down of fat men." 

14 The passages of his titles are the lines of succession by which his claims 
descend. Unhidden is open, clear. — JOHNSON. 

15 Isabella, queen of Edward the Second, and mother of Edward the 
Third, was the daughter of Philip the Fair, of France. She was reputed the 
most beautiful woman in Europe, and was by many thought the wickedest. 
The male succession from her father expired in the person of her brother, 
Charles the Fair. So that, but for the exclusion of females, the French 
crown would have properly descended to her son. 



44 KING HENRY THE FIFTH. ACT I. 

Ely. It is. 

Cant. Then go we in, to know his embassy ; 
Which I could, with a ready guess, declare, 
Before the Frenchman speak a word of it. 

Ely. I'll wait upon you ; and I long to hear it. [Exeunt. 



Scene II. — The Same. The Presence-chamber in the Same. 

Enter King Henry, Gloster, Bedford, Exeter, Warwick, 
Westmoreland, 1 and Attendants. 

King. Where is my gracious Lord of Canterbury ? 

Exe. Not here in presence. 

King. Send for him, good uncle. 

West. Shall we call in th' ambassador, my liege ? 

King. Not yet, my cousin : we would be resolved, 2 
Before we hear him, of some things of weight, 
That task our thoughts, concerning us and France. 

Enter the Archbishop ^Canterbury and the Bishop of Ely. 

Cant. God and His angels guard your sacred throne, 
And make you long become it ! 

King. Sure, we thank you. 

My learned lord, we pray you to proceed, 
And justly and religiously unfold 

1 The Princes Humphrey and John were made Dukes of Gloster and 
Bedford at the first Parliament of Henry the Fifth, in 1414. At the same 
time, according to Holinshed, Thomas Beaufort, Marquess of Dorset, was 
made Duke of Exeter. The Beaufort family sprang from John of Gaunt by 
Catharine Swynford, to whom he was married after she had borne him sev- 
eral children. — The earldom of Warwick was at that time in the family of 
Beauchamp, and the Earl of Westmoreland was Ralph Neville. 

2 Resolve is very often used by old writers in the sense of inform, assure, 
or satisfy. 



SCENE II. KING HENRY THE FIFTH. 45 

Why the law Salique, that they have in France, 

Or should or should not bar us in our claim : 

And God forbid, my dear and faithful lord, 

That you should fashion, wrest, or bow your reading, 

Or nicely 3 charge your understanding soul 

With opening titles miscreate, whose right 4 

Suits not in native colours with the truth ; 

For God doth know how many, now in health, 

Shall drop their blood in approbation 5 

Of what your Reverence shall incite us to. 

Therefore take heed how you impawn 6 our person, 

How you awake the sleeping sword of war ; 

We charge you, in the name of God, take heed : 

For never two such kingdoms did contend 

Without much fall of blood ; whose guiltless drops 

Are every one a woe, a sore complaint 

'Gainst him whose wrong gives edge unto the sword 

That makes such waste in brief mortality. 

Under this conjuration, speak, my lord ; 

For we will hear, note, and believe in heart 

That what you speak is in your conscience wash'd 

As pure as sin with baptism. 

Cant. Then hear me, gracious sovereign, — and you peers, 



3 Nicely here has the sense of curiously or ingeniously, and its force rather 
qualifies opening than charge: so that the sense of the whole clause is, 
" that you should burden your wise judgment with the guilt of making that 
seem fairly and truly derived which is really a false creation, a fiction of 
craft and ingenuity." 

4 Whose right is equivalent to the right growing from which, or depend- 
ing on which : the right growing from which, however plausibly made out, 
would not stand with a plain and honest handling of the matter. 

5 Approbation was used of old for proving or establishing by proof. 

6 To impawn was to e?igage or pledge. 



46 KING HENRY THE FIFTH. ACT L 

That owe yourselves, your lives, and services 

To this imperial throne : — There is no bar 

To make against your Highness' claim to France 

But this, which they produce from Pharamond, 

In te?'ram Salicam mulieres ne succedant, 

" No woman shall succeed in Salique land " : 

Which Salique land the French unjustly gloze 7 

To be the realm of France, and Pharamond 

The founder of this law and female bar. 

Yet their own authors faithfully affirm 

That the land Salique is in Germany, 

Between the floods of Sala and of Elbe ; 

Where Charles the Great, having subdued the Saxons, 

There left behind and settled certain French ; 

Who, holding in disdain the German women 

For some dishonest 8 manners of their life, 

Establish'd then this law, to wit, no female 

Should be inheritrix in Salique land : 

Which Salique, as I said, 'twixt Elbe and Sala, 

Is at this day in Germany calPd Meisen. 

Then doth it well appear, the Salique law 

Was not devised for the realm of France : 

Nor did the French possess the Salique land 

Until four hundred one-and-twenty years 

7 To gloze is to explain or expound, as in our word gloss. So in Holin- 
shed : " The verie words of that supposed law are these, In terrain Salicam 
mulieres tie succedant, that is to saie, Into the Salike land let not women 
succeed. Which the French glossers expound to be the realme of France, 
and that this law was made by King Pharamond." 

8 Shakespeare often uses honest and honesty for chaste and chastity. So 
here dishonest means unchaste. So in As You Like It, v. 3 : "I hope it is 
no dishonest desire, to desire to be a woman of the world" ; that is, to get 
married. See As You Like It, page 97, note 6. 



SCENE II. KING HENRY THE FIFTH. 4/ 

After defunction of King Pharamond, 

Idly supposed the founder of this law ; 

Who died within the year of our redemption 

Four hundred twenty-six ; and Charles the Great 

Subdued the Saxons, and did seat the French 

Beyond the river Sala, in the year 

Eight hundred five. Besides, their writers say, 

King Pepin, which deposed Childeric, 

Did, as heir general, being descended 

Of Blithild, which was daughter to King Clothair, 

Make claim and title to the crown of France. 

Hugh Capet also, — who usurp'd the crown 

Of Charles the Duke of Lorraine, sole heir male 

Of the true line and stock of Charles the Great, — 

To fine his title 9 with some show of truth, 

Though, in pure truth, it was corrupt and naught, 

Convey'd himself 10 as th' heir to th' Lady Lingare, 

Daughter to Charlemain, who was the son 

To Louis the Emperor, and Louis the son 

Of Charles the Great. Also King Louis the Tenth, 11 

Who was sole heir to the usurper Capet, 

Could not keep quiet in his conscience, 

Wearing the crown of France, till satisfied 

9 " To fine his title " may mean to embellish or dress up his title, to make 
it specious ox plausible. See Critical Notes. 

10 Passed himself off as heir to the lady Lingare. Bishop Cooper has 
the same expression: "To convey himself 'to be of some noble family." — 
The matter is thus stated by Holinshed : " Hugh Capet also, to make his 
title seeme true, and appeare good, though indeed it was starke naught, 
conveied himselfe as heire to the ladie Lingard, daughter to king Charle- 
maine." 

11 This should be Louis the Ninth. The Poet took the mistake from 
Holinshed. 



48 KING HENRY THE FIFTH. ACT I 

That fair Queen Isabel, his grandmother, 

Was lineal of the Lady Ermengare, 

Daughter to Charles the foresaid Duke of Lorraine : 

By the which marriage the line of Charles the Great 

Was re-united to the crown of France. 

So that, as clear as is the Summer's Sun, 

King Pepin's title, and Hugh Capet's claim, 

King Louis's satisfaction, all appear 

To hold in right and title of the female : 

So do the Kings of France unto this day ; 

Howbeit they would hold up this Salique law 

To bar your Highness claiming from the female ; 

And rather choose to hide them in a net 

Than amply to imbar 12 their crooked titles 

Usurp'd from you and your progenitors. 

King. May I with right and conscience make this claim ? 

Cant. The sin upon my head, dread sovereign ! 
For in the Book of Numbers is it writ, 
When the man dies, let the inheritance 
Desce?id unto the daughter. 12 Gracious lord, 
Stand for your own ; unwind your bloody flag ; 
Look back unto your mighty ancestors : 
Go, my dread lord, to your great-grandsire's tomb, 
From whom you claim ; invoke his warlike spirit, 
And your great-uncle's, Edward the Black Prince, 
Who on the French ground play'd a tragedy, 
Making defeat on the full power of France, 



12 To imbar is to bar ; that is, to exclude or set aside. See Critical Notes. 

13 The passage referred to is in Numbers xxvii, 8. Holinshed gives it 
thus : " The archbishop further alledged out of the booke of Numbers this 
saieing, * When a man dieth without a sonne, let the inheritance descend to 
his daughter.' " 



SCENE II. KING HENRY THE FIFTH. 49 

Whiles his most mighty father on a hill 
Stood smiling to behold his lion's whelp 
Forage in blood of French nobility. 
O noble English, that could entertain 
With half their forces the full pride of France, 
And let another half stand laughing by, 
All out of work and cold for action ! 14 

Ely. Awake remembrance of these valiant dead, 
And with your puissant arm renew their feats : 
You are their heir ; you sit upon their throne ; 
The blood and courage that renowned them 
Runs in your veins ; and my thrice-puissant liege 
Is in the very May-morn of his youth, 
Ripe for exploits and mighty enterprises. 

Exe. Your brother kings and monarchs of the Earth 
Do all expect that you should rouse yourself, 
As did the former lions of your blood : 
They know your Grace hath cause and means and might. 

West. So hath your Highness ; never King of England 
Had nobles richer and more loyal subjects, 
Whose hearts have left their bodies here in England, 
And lie pavilion'd in the fields of France. 

Cant O, let their bodies follow, my dear liege, 
With blood and sword and fire to win your right : 
In aid whereof we of the Spirituality 
Will raise your Highness such a mighty sum 
As never did the Clergy at one time 
Bring in to any of your ancestors. 

King. We must not only arm t' invade the French, 
But lay down our proportions to defend 

14 The meaning evidently is, cold for want of action. For similar in- 
stances of language see As You Like It, page 79, note 7. 



50 KING HENRY THE FIFTH. ACT I. 

Against the Scot, who will make road upon us 
With all advantages. 

Cant. They of those marches, 15 gracious sovereign, 
Shall be a wall sufficient to defend 
Our inland from the pilfering borderers. 

King. We do not mean the coursing snatchers only, 
But fear the main intendment of the Scot, 16 
Who hath been still a giddy neighbour to us ; 
For you shall read that my great-grandfather 
Never went with his forces into France, 
But that the Scot on his unfurnish'd kingdom 
Came pouring, like the tide into a breach, 
With ample and brim fulness of his force ; 
Galling the gleaned land with hot assays, 
Girding with grievous siege castles and towns ; 
That England, being empty of defence, 
Hath shook and trembled at th' ill neighbourhood. 

Cant. She hath been then more fear'd 17 than harm' d, my 
liege ; 
For hear her but exampled by herself : 
When all her chivalry hath been in France, 
And she a mourning widow of her nobles, 
She hath herself not only well defended, 
But taken, and impounded as a stray, 
The King of Scots ; whom she did send to France, 
To fill King Edward's fame with prisoner kings, 
And make her chronicle as rich with praise 

15 The marches are the borders. See / Henry IV, page 93, note 1. 

16 The main intendment is the principal purpose ; that he will bend his 
whole force against us. — A giddy neighbour is an unstable or inconstant 
neighbour, one not true to his promises. 

17 Fear'd here means frightened. We have it in the same sense in other 
places, as in j Henry VI, v. 2 : " Warwick was a bug that fear'd us all." 



SCENE II. KING HENRY THE FIFTH. 5 1 

As is the ooze and bottom of the sea 
With sunken wreck and sumless treasuries. 
West. But there's a saying, very old and true, 

If that you will France wi?i, 
Then with Scotland first begin : 

For, once the eagle England being in prey, 
To her unguarded nest the weasel Scot 
Comes sneaking, and so sucks her princely eggs ; 
Playing the mouse in absence of the cat, 
To tear and havoc more than she can eat. 

Exe. It follows, then, the cat must stay at home : 
Yet that is but a crush'd 18 necessity, 
Since we have locks to safeguard necessaries, 
And pretty traps to catch the petty thieves. 
While that the armed hand doth fight abroad, 
Th' advised 19 head defends itself at home ; 
For government, though high and low and lower, 
Put into parts, doth keep in one concent, 20 
Congreeing in a full and natural close, 
Like music. 

Cant. True : therefore doth Heaven divide 

The state of man in divers functions, 

18 " A crush'd necessity " seems to be a proleptical form of speech, mean- 
ing a necessity that will or may be crushed, or overcome, by the use of other 
means, such as locks and traps. See Critical Notes. 

19 Advised is thoughtful, deliberate. Often so. See The Merchant, page 
87, note 33. 

20 Consent and concent are only different forms of the same word ; but 
concent is the form that has grown to be a term of art in music. The idea 
of this passage occurs in a fragment quoted by St. Augustine from a lost 
book of Cicero's. But Shakespeare, if he did not discover it with his own 
unassisted eye, was more likely to derive it from Plato, who was much 
studied in England in his time. 



52 KING HENRY THE FIFTH. ACT I- 

Setting endeavour in continual motion ; 
To which is fixed, as an aim or butt, 21 
Obedience : for so work the honey-bees ; 
Creatures that, by a rule in Nature, teach 
The art of order to a peopled kingdom. 
They have a king, and officers of sorts ; 22 
Where some, like magistrates, correct at home ; 
Others, like merchants, venture trade abroad ; 
Others, like soldiers, armed in their stings, 
Make boot upon the Summer's velvet buds ; 
Which pillage they with merry march bring home 
To the tent-royal of their emperor ; 
Who, busied in his majesty, surveys 
The singing masons building roofs of gold ; 
The civil citizens kneading-up the honey ; 
The poor mechanic porters crowding-in 
Their heavy burdens at his narrow gate ; 
The sad-eyed justice, with his surly hum, 
Delivering o'er to executors 23 pale 
The lazy yawning drone. I this infer, 
That many things, having full reference 
To one concent, may work contrariously 
As many arrows, loosed several ways, 



21 Butt is a term in archery for the mark or object aimed at. The gen- 
eral idea of the passage is, that action or endeavour has, for its rule and 
measure, obedience, or rather the thing obeyed, that is, law ; and this law, 
standing as a common mark or aim, keeps endeavour from running at 
cross-purposes with itself. 

22 " Officers of sorts " probably means officers of different ranks or 
grades. Or it may mean officers having different parts or duties allotted to 
them. The sense of the Latin sors. 

23 Executors for executioners. So in Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy. 
" Tremble at an executor, and yet not fear hell-fire." 



SCENE II. KING HENRY THE FIFTH. 53 

Fly to one mark ; as many ways meet in one town ; 

As many fresh streams meet in one salt sea ; 

As many lines close in the dial's centre ; 

So may a thousand actions, once afoot, 

End in one purpose, and be all well borne 24 

Without defeat. Therefore to France, my liege. 

Divide your happy England into four ; 

Whereof take you one quarter into France, 

And you withal shall make all Gallia shake. 

If we, with thrice such powers left at home, 

Cannot defend our own doors from the dog, 

Let us be worried, and our nation lose 

The name of hardiness and policy. 

King. Call in the messengers sent from the Dauphin. — 

\_Exeunt some Attendants. 
Now are we well resolved ; and, by God's help, 
And yours, the noble sinews of our power, 
France being ours, we'll bend it to our awe, 
Or break it all to pieces : there we'll sit, 
Ruling in large and ample empery 25 
O'er France and all her almost kingly dukedoms, 
Or lay these bones in an unworthy urn, 
Tombless, with no remembrance over them : 
Either our history shall with full mouth 
Speak freely of our acts, or else our grave, 
Like Turkish mutes, shall have a tongueless mouth, 
Not worshipp'd with a waxen epitaph. 26 — 



24 Borne, here, is carried on or worked through. Repeatedly so. 

25 Empery is, in old usage, a word for dominion or sovereignty. 

26 Formerly, in England, it was customary, on the death of an eminent 
person, for his friends to compose short laudatory poems or epitaphs, and 
affix them to the hearse or the grave with pins, paste, or wax. Gifford 



54 KING HENRY THE FIFTH. ACT I. 

Enter Ambassadors of France, attended. 

Now are we well prepared to know the pleasure 
Of our fair cousin Dauphin ; for we hear 
Your greeting is from him, not from the King. 

i Amb. May't please your Majesty to give us leave 
Freely to render what we have in charge ; 
Or shall we sparingly show you far off 
The Dauphin's meaning and our embassy? 

King. We are no tyrant, but a Christian king ; 
Unto whose grace our passion is as subject 
As are our wretches fetter'd in our prisons : 
Therefore with frank and with uncurbed plainness 
Tell us the Dauphin's mind. 

i Amb. Thus, then, in few : 

Your Highness, lately sending into France, 
Did claim some certain dukedoms, in the right 
Of your great predecessor, Edward Third : 
In answer of which claim, the Prince our master 
Says that you savour too much of your youth ; 
And bids you be advised, 27 there's nought in France 
That can be with a nimble galliard 28 won : 
You cannot revel into dukedoms there. 
He therefore sends you, meeter for your spirit, 



thinks, and, apparently, with good reason, that the Poet here alludes to this 
custom. He adds, " Henry's meaning therefore is ' I will either have my 
full history recorded with glory, or lie in an undistinguished grave; not 
merely without an inscription sculptured in stone, but unhonoured even by a 
waxen epitaph,' that is, by the short-lived compliment of a paper fastened 
on it." 

27 Here be advised is bethink yourself ; much the same as in note 19. 

28 Galliard was the name of a sprightly dance. See Twelfth Night, 
page 40, note 22. 



SCENE ii. KING HENRY THE FIFTH. 55 

This ton of treasure ; and, in lieu of this, 29 
Desires you let the dukedoms that you claim 
Hear no more of you. This the Dauphin speaks. 

King. What treasure, uncle ? 

Exe. Tennis-balls, 30 my liege. 

King. We're glad the Dauphin is so pleasant with us ; 
His present and your pains we thank you for : 
When we have match'd our rackets to these balls, 
We will, in France, by God's grace, play a set 
Shall strike his father's crown into the hazard. 31 

29 In lieu of is in return for, or in consideration of. See The Tempest, 
page 55, note 36. 

30 In the corresponding scene of The Famous Victories of Henry the 
Fifth, the Archbishop delivers to the King "a tunne of tennis-balles " as a 
present from the Dauphin. The King thereupon exclaims, " What, & gilded 
tunne/" and, upon his asking, "What might the meaning thereof be? " the 
Archbishop replies, " My lord, hearing of your wildness before your father's 
death, sent you this, meaning that you are more fitter for a tennis-court than 
a field." I quote this mainly as throwing light on the meaning of tun here. 
The following from The Edinburgh Review, October, 1872, will give what 
further light may be needed. " In addition to a large cask containing a 
certain measure of liquids or solids, it was applied to a goblet, chalice, or 
drinking-cup, more commonly a silver-gilt goblet. Thus. Minsheu, on the 
English side of his Spanish Dictionary, gives ' a tunne, or nut to drink in, 
cubilete', which is explained, ' a drinking-cup of silver, or such a cup as 
jugglers use, to show divers tricks by.' In illustration of this we may men- 
tion that in an old country town we remember an inn formerly known as 
' The Three Tuns,' which had as its ancient painted sign three gilt goblets 
exactly like those used by street jugglers." From a passage given by Halli- 
well, it would seem that nut or nutte was used like tun for a drinking-cup or 
goblet, which in wealthy Houses was commonly of silver or silver-gilt. 

31 The hazard is a place in the tennis-court into which the ball is some- 
times struck. — Rackets are instruments made with a sort of hoop at the 
further end, and some light elastic material stretched over it, for striking or 
catching the balls in a game of tennis. So Swift, in his Preface to A Tale 
of a Tub, 1697 : " 'Tis but a ball bandied to and fro, and every man carries 
a racket about him, to strike it from himself, among the rest of the com- 
pany." 



56 KING HENRY THE FIFTH. ACT I. 

Tell him he hath made a match with such a wrangler 

That all the courts of France will be disturb'd 

With chases. 32 And we understand him well, 

How he comes o'er us with our wilder days, 

Not measuring what use we made of them. 

We never valued this poor seat of England ; 

And therefore, living here, did give ourself 

To barbarous license ; as 'tis ever common 

That men are merriest when they are from home. 

But tell the Dauphin, I will keep my state, 

Be like a king, and show my soul of greatness, 

When I do rouse me in my throne of France : 

For here I have laid by my majesty, 

And plodded like a man for working-days ; 

But I will rise there with so full a glory, 

That I will dazzle all the eyes of France, 

Yea, strike the Dauphin blind to look on us. 

And tell the pleasant Prince, this mock of his 

Hath turn'd his balls to gun-stones ; 33 and his soul 

Shall stand sore charged for the wasteful vengeance 

That shall fly with them : for many a thousand widows 

Shall this his mock mock out of their dear husbands ; 

Mock mothers from their sons, mock castles down ; 

And some are yet ungotten and unborn 

That shall have cause to curse the Dauphin's scorn. 

But this lies all within the will of God, 

To whom I do appeal ; and in whose name, 

Tell you the Dauphin, I am coming on, 

To venge me as I may, and to put forth 

32 A chase at tennis is the duration of a contest between the players, in 
which the endeavour on each side is to keep the ball up. 

33 At the first bringing of cannon into the field stones were used for balls. 



SCENE II. KING HENRY THE FIFTH. 57 

My rightful hand in a well-hallow'd cause. 

So, get you hence in peace ; and tell the Dauphin, 

His jest will savour but of shallow wit, 

When thousands weep, more than did laugh at it. — 

Convey them with safe conduct. 34 — Fare you well. 

[Exeunt Ambassadors. 

Exe. This was a merry message. 

King. We hope to make the sender blush at it. 
Therefore, my lords, omit no happy 35 hour 
That may give furtherance to our expedition ; 
For we have now no thought in us but France, 
Save those to God, that run before our business. 
Therefore let our proportions 36 for these wars 
Be soon collected, and all things thought upon 
That may with reasonable swiftness add 
More feathers to our wings ; for, God before, 37 
We'll chide this Dauphin at his father's door. 
Therefore let every man now task his thought, 
That this fair action may on foot be brought. 

{Flourish. Exeunt. 

34 Conduct for escort or attendance. Often so. See King yohn, page 39, 
note 4. 

35 Happy for auspicious ox propitious, like the Latin felix. 

36 To proportion a thing is to make it proportionable to the purpose. So 
here the noun means suitable numbers of troops ; as before in this scene : 
" But lay down our proportions to defend against the Scot." 

57 That is, God going before ; God prospering or guiding us. 



58 KING HENRY THE FIFTH. 



Scene III. — London. Before the Boar's-Head Tavern, 
Eastcheap. 

Enter, severally, Nym and Bardolph. 

Bard. Well met, Corporal Nym. 1 

Nym. Good morrow, Lieutenant Bardolph. 

Bard. What, are Ancient 2 Pistol and you friends yet ? 

Nym. For my part, I care not : I say little ; but, when 
time shall serve, there shall be smites : but that shall be 
as it may. I dare not fight ; but I will wink, and hold out 
mine iron : it is a simple one ; but what though ? it will toast 
cheese, and it will endure cold as another man's sword will : 
and there's an end. 

Bard. I will bestow a breakfast to make you friends ; and 
we'll be all three sworn brothers 3 in France : left be so, 
good Corporal Nym. 

Nym. Faith, I will live so long as I may, that's the cer- 
tain of it ; and, when I cannot live any longer, I will die as 
I may : that is my rest, that is the rendezvous of it. 

Bard. It is certain, corporal, that he is married to Nell 
Quickly : and, certainly, she did you wrong ; for you were 
troth-plight to her. 

Nym. I cannot tell : things must be as they may : men 

1 This corporal derives his name from the Saxon niman, which means to 
take ; and in the old cant of English thieves to steal was to nim. In fact, 
thieves generally, I believe, are apt to take it in ill part, if the word stealing 
is applied to their action. And an experienced English magistrate is said 
to have remarked, that " of the persons brought before him for theft many 
confessed they took the article in question, but none said they stole it." 

2 Ancient is an old corruption of ensign. See / Henry IV., p. 157, n. 8. 

8 In the times of adventure it was usual for two or more chiefs to bind 
themselves to share in each other's fortunes, and divide their acquisitions 
between them. They were called fratres jurati. 



SCENE ill. KING HENRY THE FIFTH. 59 

may sleep, and they may have their throats about them at 
that time ; and some say knives have edges. It must be 
as it may : though patience be a tired mare, yet she will 
plod. There must be conclusions. Well, I cannot tell. 

Bard. Here comes Ancient Pistol and his wife : good 
corporal, be patient here. — 

Enter Pistol and the Hostess. 

How now, mine host Pistol ! 

Fist. Base tike, 4 call'st thou me host? 
Now, by this hand, I swear, I scorn the term ; 
Nor shall my Nell keep lodgers. 

Host. No, by my troth, not long; for we cannot lodge 
and board a dozen or fourteen gentlewomen that live honestly 
by the prick of their needles, but it will be thought we keep 
a naughty house straight. — [Nym draws his sword.~\ O well- 
a-day, Lady, if he be not drawn ! [Pistol also draws his 
sword.~\ Now we shall see wilful adultery and murder com- 
mitted. 

Bard. Good lieutenant, 5 — good corporal, — offer nothing 
here. 

Nym. Pish ! 

Fist. Pish for thee, Iceland dog ! thou prick-ear'd cur of 
Iceland ! 6 

4 Tike was much used, as it still is in some places, for a large dog. 

5 Bardolph here addresses Pistol as lieutenant, though he has twice be- 
fore called him ancient, which is his proper title. Whether the slip is Bar- 
dolph's or the Poet's, may be something uncertain. So, near the close of 
the preceding play, Falstaff addresses the same ensign as "Lieutenant 
Pistol." Also, in this scene, Nym calls Bardolph lieutenant ; whereas, in 
iii. I, he addresses him as corporal. 

6 The cur of Iceland is called prick-eared, because he pricks up his ears, 
or has his ears erect and pointed. — A treatise by Abraham Fleming, printed 



60 KING HENRY THE FIFTH. ACT I. 

Host. Good Corporal Nym, show thy valour, and put up 
your sword. 

Nym. Will you shog off? I would have you solus. 

[Sheathing his sword. 

Fist. Solus , egregious dog? O viper vile ! 
The solus in thy most marvellous face ; 
The solus in thy teeth, and in thy throat, 
And in thy hateful lungs, yea, in thy maw, perdy, 7 
And, which is worse, within thy nasty mouth ! 
I do retort the solus in thy bowels ; 
For I can take, 8 and Pistol's cock is up, 
And flashing fire will follow. 

Nym. I am not Barbason ; 9 you cannot conjure me. I 
have an humour to knock you indifferently well. If you 
grow foul with me, Pistol, I will scour you with my rapier, 
as I may, in fair terms : if you would walk off, I would 
prick you a little, in good terms, as I may : and that's the 
humour of it. 

Fist. O braggart vile, and damned furious wight ! 
The grave doth gape, and doting death is near ; 

in 1576, has this : " Iceland dogs, curled and rough all over, which, by reason 
of the length of their hair, make show neither of face nor of body. And yet 
these curs, forsooth, because they are so strange, are greatly set by, esteemed, 
taken up, and made of, many times, instead of the spaniel gentle or com- 
forter." 

7 Perdy is an old corruption of par dieu, which seems to have been going 
out of use in the Poet's time. It occurs often in the old plays, and was 
probably taken thence by Pistol, whose talk is chiefly made up from the 
gleanings of the playhouse, the groggery, and other like places. 

8 Pistol evidently uses this phrase in the same sense it bears in our time. 
He supposes Nym to have conveyed some dark insult by the word solus, 
and he prides himself on his ability to take the meaning of such insinuations. 

9 Barbason is the name of a demon mentioned in The Merry Wives of 
Windsor. The unmeaning tumour of Pistol's speech very naturally reminds 
Nym of the sounding nonsense uttered by conjurers. 



SCENE in. KING HENRY THE FIFTH. 6l 

Therefore exhale. 10 [Nym draws his sword. 

Bard. Hear me, hear me what I say : He that strikes the 
first stroke, I'll run him up to the hilts, as I am a soldier. 

[Draws his sword. 

Fist. An oath of mickle might ; and fury shall abate. — 
Give me thy fist, thy fore-foot to me give : 
Thy spirits are most tall. \_They sheathe their swords. 

Nym. I will cut thy throat, one time or other, in fair 
terms : that is the humour of it. 

Pist. Coupe la gorge ! 
That is the word. I thee defy again. 

hound of Crete, think'st thou my spouse to get ? * 
No ; to the spital n go, 

And from the powdering-tub of infamy 
Fetch forth the lazar kite of Cressid's kind, 
Doll Tearsheet she by name, and her espouse : 

1 have, and I will hold, the quondam Quickly 
For th' only she ; and Pauca, 12 there's enough. 
Go to. 

Enter the Boy. 

Boy. Mine host Pistol, you must come to my master, — 
and you, hostess: — he is very sick, and would to bed. — 
Good Bardolph, put thy face between his sheets, and do the 
office of a warming-pan. Faith, he's very ill. 

Bard. Away, you rogue ! 

10 Pistol's exhale means, draw thy sword. So in King Richard III., i. 2: 
" 'Tis thy presence that exhales this blood from cold and empty veins." 
The Poet repeatedly has exhale in the same sense. 

11 Spital is hospital ; and powder mg-tub refers to the old mode of treat- 
ing certain diseases. Pistol means to insinuate that Mistress Doll has gone 
to an hospital to be treated in that way. 

12 That is, pauca verba, few words. 



62 KING HENRY THE FIFTH. ACT I. 

Host. By my troth, he'll yield the crow a pudding one 
of these days : the King has kill'd his heart. — Good hus- 
band, come home presently. [Exeunt Hostess and Boy. 

Bard. Come, shall I make you two friends? We must 
to France together : why the Devil should we keep knives to 
cut one another's throats? 

Pist. Let floods o'erswell, and fiends for food howl on ! 

Nym. You'll pay me the eight shillings I won of you at 
betting ? 

Pist Base is the slave that pays. 

Nym. That now I will have : that's the humour of it. 

Pist. As manhood shall compound : push home. 

[Pistol and Nym draw their swords. 

Bard. By this sword, he that makes, the first thrust, I'll 
kill him ; by this sword, I will. [Draws his sword. 

Pist. Sword is an oath, and oaths must have their course. 

Bard. Corporal Nym, an thou wilt be friends, be friends : 
an thou wilt not, why, then be enemies with me too. Pr'y- 
thee, put up. 

Nym. I shall have my eight shillings I won of you at 
betting ? 

Pist. A noble 13 shalt thou have, and present pay ; 
And liquor likewise will I give to thee, 
And friendship shall combine and brotherhood ; 
I'll live by Nym, and Nym shall live by me ; — 
Is not this just? — for I shall sutler be 
Unto the camp, and profits will accrue. 
Give me thy hand. [They sheathe their swords. 

Nym. I shall have my noble? 

Pist. In cash most justly paid. 

13 The noble was worth six shillings and eight pence. 



CHORUS. KING HENRY THE FIFTH. 63 

Nym. Well, then, that's the humour of it. 
Re-enter the Hostess. 

Host. As ever you came of women, come in quickly to 
Sir John. Ah, poor heart ! he is so shaked of a burning 
quotidian tertian, 14 that it is most lamentable to behold. 
Sweet men, come to him. 

Nym. The King hath run bad humours on the knight; 
that's the even of it. 

Pist. Nym, thou hast spoke the right ; 
His heart is fracted and corroborate. 

Nym. The King is a good king : but it must be as it 
may ; he passes some humours and careers. 15 

Pist. Let us condole the knight; for lambkins we will 
live. 16 {Exeunt. 



ACT II. 

Enter Chorus. 



Chor. Now all the youth of England are on fire, 
And silken dalliance in the wardrobe lies : 
Now thrive the armourers, and honour's thought 
Reigns solely in the breast of every man : 

14 The Hostess here uses words, as she has before used adultery, without 
knowing their meaning. A quotidian is a fever that returns every day ; a 
tertian, every three days. 

15 To pass a career is said to have been a technical phrase for galloping 
a horse violently to and fro, and then stopping him suddenly at the end of 
the course. Nym refers to the King's sudden change "of treatment towards 
Falstaff, on coming to the crown. 

16 <« We'll live together quietly and peaceably, like little lambs." 



64 KING HENRY THE FIFTH. ACT II. 

They sell the pasture now to buy the horse ; 

Following the mirror of all Christian kings, 

With winged heels, as English Mercuries. 

For now sits Expectation in the air ; 

And hides a sword from hilts unto the point 

With crowns imperial, crowns, and coronets, 

Promised to Harry and his followers. 

The French, advised by good intelligence 

Of this most dreadful preparation, 

Shake in their fear ; and with pale policy 

Seek to divert the English purposes. 

O England ! — model to thy inward greatness, 

Like little body with a mighty heart, — 

What mightst thou do, that honour would thee do, 

Were all thy children kind and natural ! 

But see thy fault ! France hath in thee found out 

A nest of hollow bosoms, which he fills 

With treacherous crowns ; and three corrupted men, — 

One, Richard, Earl of Cambridge ; l and the second, 

Henry Lord Scroop of Masham ; and the third, 

Sir Thomas Grey, knight, of Northumberland, — 

Have, for the gilt of France — O guilt indeed ! — 

1 This was Richard Plantagenet, second son to Edmund of Langley, 
Duke of York, who, again, was the fourth son of Edward the Third. He 
was married to Anne Mortimer, sister to Edmund, Earl of March, and 
great-granddaughter of Lionel, Duke of Clarence, who was the second son 
of Edward the Third. From this marriage sprung Richard, who in the 
next reign was restored to the rights and titles forfeited by his father, and 
was made Duke of York. This Richard afterwards claimed the crown in 
right of his motherland as the lineal heir from the aforesaid Lionel; and 
hence arose the long war between the Houses of York and Lancaster. So 
that the present Earl of Cambridge was the grandfather of Edward the 
Fourth and Richard the Third. His older brother, Edward, the Duke of 
York of this play, was killed at the battle of Agincourt, and left no child. 



SCENE I. KING HENRY THE FIFTH. 6$ 

Confirm'd conspiracy with fearful France ; 

And by their hands this grace of kings must die, 

If Hell and treason hold their promises, 

Ere he take ship for France, and in Southampton. 

The sum is paid ; the traitors are agreed ; 

The King is set from London ; and the scene 

Is now transported, gentles, to Southampton ; 

There is the playhouse now, there must you sit : 

And thence to France shall we convey you safe, 

And bring you back, charming the narrow seas 

To give you gentle pass ; for, if we may, 

We'll not offend one stomach with our play. [Exit 



Scene I. — Southampton. A Council- Chamber. 
Enter Exeter, Bedford, and Westmoreland. 

Bed. 'Fore God, his Grace is bold, to trust these traitors. 

.Exe. They shall be apprehended by-and-by. 

West. How smooth and even they do bear themselves ! 
As if allegiance in their bosoms sat, 
Crowned with faith and constant loyalty. 

Bed. The King hath note of all that they intend, 
By interception which they dream not of. 

Exe. Nay, but the man that was his bedfellow, 
Whom he hath dull'd and cloy'd with gracious favours ; 
That he should, for a foreign purse, so sell 
His sovereign's life to death and treachery ! 

Trumpets sound. Enter King Henry, Cambridge, Scroop, 
Grey, Lords, and Attendants. 

King. Now sits the wind fair, and we will aboard. 



66 KING HENRY THE FIFTH. ACT II. 

My Lord of Cambridge, — and my kind Lord of Masham, — 

And you, my gentle knight, — give me your thoughts : 

Think you not, that the powers we bear with us 

Will cut their passage through the force of France, 

Doing the execution and the act 

For which we have in head assembled them ? 

Scroop. No doubt, my liege, if each man do his best. 

King. I doubt not that ; since we are well persuaded 
We carry not a heart with us from hence 
That grows not in a fair concent with ours, 
Nor leave not one behind that doth not wish 
Success and conquest to attend on us. 

Cam. Never was monarch better fear'd and loved 
Than is your Majesty : there's not, I think, a subject 
That sits in heart-grief and uneasiness 
Under the sweet shade of your government. 

Grey. True ; those that were your father's enemies 
Have steep 'd their galls in honey, and do serve you 
With hearts create of duty l and of zeal. 

Xing. We therefore have great cause of thankfulness ; 
And shall forget the office of our hand, 
Sooner than quittance 2 of desert and merit 
According to their weight and worthiness. 

Scroop. So service shall with steeled sinews toil, 
And labour shall refresh itself with hope, 
To do your Grace incessant services. 

Xing. We judge no less. — Uncle of Exeter, 
Enlarge the man committed yesterday, 

1 Create for created. The Poet has many such shortened preterites ; as 
frustrate, situate, suffocate, &c. — Duty, here, is dutifulness, the act for the 
motive or principle of it. 

2 Quittance for requital or return. See 2 Henry IV., page 6o, note 12, 



SCENE I. KING HENRY THE FIFTH. 6/ 

That rail'd against our person : we consider 
It was excess of wine that set him on ; 
And, on our more advice, 3 we pardon him. 

Scroop. That's mercy, but too much security : 
Let him be punish'd, sovereign ; lest example 
Breed, by his sufferance, more of such a kind. 

King. O, let us yet be merciful. 

Cam. So may your Highness, and yet punish too. 

Grey. Sir, 
You show great mercy, if you give him life, 
After the taste of much correction. 

King. Alas, your too much love and care of me 
Are heavy orisons 'gainst this poor wretch ! 
If little faults, proceeding on distemper, 4 
Shall not be wink'd at, how shall we stretch our eye 
When capital crimes, chew'd, swallow'd, and digested, 
Appear before us? — We'll yet enlarge that man, 
Though Cambridge, Scroop, and Grey, in their dear care 
And tender preservation of our person, 

Would have him punish'd. And now to our French causes : 
Who are the late 5 commissioners ? 

Cam. I one, my lord : 
Your Highness bade me ask for it to-day. 

Scroop. So did you me, my liege. 

Grey. And me, my royal sovereign. 

King. Then, Richard Earl of Cambridge, there is yours ; — 

3 " On more advice " is on further consideration. See The Merchant, 
page 180, note i. — Security, in the next line, has the sense of the Latin 
seairus ; over- confidence. A frequent usage. See Macbeth, page 119, note 4. 

4 Distemper for intemperance. The King has just said, " It was excess of 
wi?te that set him on." So in Othello, i. 1 : " Being full of supper and dis- 
tempering- draughts." 

5 Late in the sense of recent or newly-appointed. 



68 KING HENRY THE FIFTH. ACT II. 

There yours, Lord Scroop of Masham ; — and, sir knight, 
Grey of Northumberland, this same is yours : — 
Read them ; and know, I know your worthiness. — • 
My Lord of Westmoreland, — and uncle Exeter, — 
We will aboard to-night. — W T hy, how now, gentlemen ! 
What see you in those papers, that you lose 
So much complexion? — Look ye, how they change ! 
Their cheeks are paper. — Why, what read you there, 
That hath so cowarded and chased your blood 
Out of appearance ? 

Cam. I do confess my fault ; 

And do submit me to your Highness' mercy. 

*' \ To which we all appeal. 
Scroop. ) iV 

King. The mercy that was quick 6 in us but late, 

By your own counsel is suppress'd and kill'd : 

You must not dare, for shame, to talk of mercy ; 

For your own reasons turn into your bosoms, 

As dogs upon their masters, worrying you. — 

See you, my princes and my noble peers, 

These English monsters ! My lord of Cambridge here, 

You know how apt our love was to accord 

To furnish him 7 with all appertinents 

Belonging to his honour ; and this man 

Hath, for a few light crowns, lightly 8 conspired, 

And sworn unto the practices of France, 

To kill us here in Hampton : to the which 

6 Quick, here, is living ox alive. See The Winter's Tale, page 117, note 18. 

7 In furnishing ■him; the infinitive used gerundively, as very often. Ac- 
cord in the sense of agree or consent. 

8 Lightly, here, is pro?nptly, readily, or without scruple. So in The Com- 
edy, iv. 4 : " And will not lightly trust the messenger." 



SCENE I. KING HENRY THE FIFTH. 69 

This knight, no less for bounty bound to us 

Than Cambridge is, hath likewise sworn. — But, O, 

What shall I say to thee, Lord Scroop ? thou cruel, 

Ingrateful, savage, and inhuman creature ! 

Thou that didst bear the key of" all my counsels, 

That knew'st the very bottom of my soul, 

That almost mightst have coin'd me into gold, 

Wouldst thou have practised on me for thy use ; 

May it be possible, that foreign hire 

Could out of thee extract one spark of evil 

That might annoy my finger? 'tis so strange, 

That, though the truth of it stands off as gross 

As black from white, my eye will scarcely see it. 

Treason and murder ever kept together, 

As two yoke-devils sworn to either's purpose, 

Working so grossly in a natural cause, 9 

That admiration did not whoop at them : 

But thou, 'gainst all proportion, 10 didst bring in 

Wonder to wait on treason and on murder : 

And whatsoever cunning fiend it was 

That wrought upon thee so preposterously, 

Hath got the- voice in Hell for excellence : 

And other devils, that suggest n by treasons, 

9 Heath probably gives the right explanation of this : " Working so ap- 
parently under the influence of some motive which nature excuses at least 
in some measure; such as self-preservation, revenge, and the like, which 
have the greatest sway in the constitution of human nature." — In the next 
line, admiration is wonder, as usual in Shakespeare. To whoop is to ex- 
claim, or utter a note of surprise. 

10 Proportion in the sense of natural order or fitness. The sense of the 
passage is, that Scroop's course is to be wondered at because it is against 
all the proper analogies of crime, and therefore monstrous. 

11 To suggest, in old usage, is to tempt, to seduce. The same with sug- 
gestion. See The Tempest, page 89, note 53. 



yO KING HENRY THE FIFTH. ACT IL 

Do botch and bungle up damnation 

With patches, colours, and with forms being fetch'd 

From glistering semblances of piety ; 

But he that tempted thee bade thee stand up, 

Gave thee no instance 12 why thou shouldst do treason, 

Unless to dub thee with the name of traitor. 

If that same demon that hath gull'd thee thus 

Should with his lion-gait walk the whole world, 13 

He might return to vasty Tartar 14 back, 

And tell the legions, / can never win 

A soul so easy as that Englishman 's. 

O, how hast thou with jealousy infected 

The sweetness of affiance ! Show men dutiful ? 

Why, so didst thou : or seem they grave and learned ? 

Why, so didst thou : come they of noble family ? 

Why, so didst thou : seem they religious ? 

Why, so didst thou : or are they spare in diet ; 

Free from gross passion, or of mirth or anger ; 

Constant in spirit, not swerving with the blood ; 

Garnish'd and deck'd in modest complement ; 15 

Not working with the eye without the ear, 

And, but 16 in purged judgment, trusting neither? 

12 The Poet uses instance in a great variety of senses, which are some- 
times not easy to define. Here it means example, purpose, or inducement. 
See 2 Henry IV, page 116, note 6. 

13 Evidently alluding to I Peter, v. 8 : " The Devil, as a roaring lion, 
walketh about, seeking whom he may devour." 

14 The Tartarus of classical mythology. Vasty in the sense of the Latin 
vastus ; hideous, frightful, devouring. So, again, in the third scene of this 
Act : " The poor souls for whom this hungry war opens his vasty jaws." 

15 Complement is accomplishment or completeness ; quite distinct from 
compliment. 

16 But is here exceptive ; and the sense of the whole passage is, not 
trusting so absolutely in his own perceptions as to despise or neglect the 



SCENE I. KING HENRY THE FIFTH. J\ 

Such and so finely bolted 17 didst thou seem : 
And thus thy fall hath left a kind of blot, 
To mark the full-fraught man and best-indued 18 
With some suspicion. I will weep for thee ; 
For this revolt of thine, methinks, is like 
Another Fall of Man. 19 — Their faults are open : 
'Arrest them to the answer of the law ; 
And God acquit them of their practices ! 

Exe. I arrest thee of high treason, by the name of Rich- 
ard Earl of Cambridge. 

I arrest thee of high treason, by the name of Henry Lord 
Scroop of Masham. 

I arrest thee of high treason, by the name of Thomas 
Grey, knight, of Northumberland. 

Scroop. Our purposes God justly hath disco ver'd ; 
And I repent my fault more than my death ; 
Which I beseech your Highness to forgive, 
Although my body pay the price of it. 

Cam. For me, the gold of France did not seduce ; 

advice of others ; and then not acting upon either till he has brought a judg- 
ment purged from the distempers of passion to bear upon the joint result. 

17 Bolted is sifted. So in The Winter s Tale, iv. 3 : " The fann'd snow 
that's bolted by the northern blasts." 

18 Here the force of best retroacts on full-fraught, giving it the sense of 
the superlative. The Poet has many instances of similar language. See 
The Merchant, page 150, note 43. 

19 Lord Scroop has already been spoken of as having been the King's 
bedfellow. Holinshed gives the following account of him : " The said lord 
Scroope was in such favour with the king, that he admitted him sometime 
to be his bedfellow, in whose fidelitie the king reposed such trust, that when 
anie privat or publike councell was in hand, this lord had much in the 
determination of it. For he represented so great gravitie in his counte- 
nance, such modestie in behaviour, and so vertuous zeale to all godlinesse 
in his talke, that whatsoever he said was thought for the most part neces- 
sarie to be doone and followed." 



J2 KING HENRY THE FIFTH. ACT IL 

Although I did admit it as a motive 
The sooner to effect what I intended : 20 
But God be thanked for prevention ; 
Which I in sufferance heartily will rejoice, 21 
Beseeching God and you to pardon me. 

Grey. Never did faithful subject more rejoice 
At the discovery of most dangerous treason 
Than I do at this hour joy o'er myself, 
Prevented from a damned enterprise : 
My fault, but not my body, pardon, sovereign 

King. God quit 22 you in His mercy ! Hear your sen- 
tence. 
You have conspired against our royal person, 
Join'd with an enemy proclaim'd, and from his coffers 
Received the golden earnest of our death ; 
Wherein you would have sold your King to slaughter, 
His princes and his peers to servitude, 
His subjects to oppression and contempt, 
And his whole kingdom into desolation. 
Touching our person, seek we no revenge ; 
But we our kingdom's safety must so" tender, 23 

20 According to Holinshed, Cambridge's purpose in joining the conspir- 
acy was, to give the crown to his brother-in-law, the Earl of March, and 
also to open the succession to his own children, as he knew the Earl of 
March was not likely to have any. As heirs from Lionel, Duke of Clarence, 
his children would, in strict order, precede the Lancastrian branch; as 
John of Gaunt, the grandfather of the present King, was the third son of 
Edward the Third. See page 64, note 1. 

21 Rather odd and harsh in construction ; but the meaning is, "at which 
I will heartily rejoice, even while suffering the pain it involves." 

22 Quit for acquit; as a little before, "And God acquit them of their 
practices ! " See As You Like It, page 78, note 2. 

23 To tender a thing, as the word is here used is to esteem it, to be care- 
ful or tender of it. See The Tempest, page 88, note 49. 



SCENE ii. KING HENRY THE FIFTH. /3 

Whose ruin you have sought, that to her laws 
We do deliver you. Get you, therefore, hence, 
Poor miserable wretches, to your death : 
The taste whereof, God of His mercy give 
You patience to endure, and true repentance 
Of all your dear offences ! — Bear them hence. — 

[Exeunt Cambridge, Scroop, and Grey, guarded. 
Now, lords, for France ; the enterprise whereof 
Shall be to you as us like glorious. 
We doubt not of a fair and lucky war, 
Since God so graciously hath brought to light 
This dangerous treason, lurking in our way 
To hinder our beginnings ; we doubt not now 
But every rub is smoothed on our way. 
Then, forth, dear countrymen : let us deliver 
Our puissance into the hand of God, 
Putting it straight in expedition. 
Cheerly to sea ; the signs of war advance : 
No King of England, if not King of France. [Exeunt. 

Scene II. — London. Before the Boards-head Tavern, 
Eastcheap. 

Enter Pistol, Hostess, Nym, Bardolph, and the Boy. 

Host. Pr'ythee, honey-sweet husband, let me bring thee 1 
to Staines. 

Fist. No ; for my manly heart doth yearn. 2 — 
Bardolph, be blithe ; — Nym, rouse thy vaunting veins ; — 

1 That is, accompany thee. Often so. 

2 To yearn is to grieve, to be sorry, to mourn. See King Richard the Sec- 
ond page 157, note 15. 



74 KIN G HENRY THE FIFTH. ACT II. 

Boy, bristle thy courage up ; — for Falstaff he is dead, 
And we must yearn therefore. 

Bard. Would I were with him, wheresome'er he is, either 
in Heaven or in Hell ! 

Host. Nay, sure, he's not in Hell : he's in Arthur's bosom, 
if ever man went to Arthur's bosom. 'A made a fine end, 
and went away, an it had been any christom 3 child : 'a parted 
even just between twelve and one, even at the turning o' the 
tide : 4 for after I saw him fumble with the sheets, and play 
with flowers, and smile upon his fingers' ends, I knew there 
was but one way ; for his nose was as sharp as a pen, and 'a 
babbled of green fields. How now, Sir John / quoth I : 
what, maji / be o 1 good cheer. So 'a cried out, God, God, 
God.' three or four times. Now I, to comfort him, bid him 
'a should not think of God ; I hoped there was no need to 
trouble himself with any such thoughts yet. So 'a bade me 
lay more clothes on his feet : I put my hand into the bed 
and felt them, and they were as cold as any stone ; then I 
felt to his knees, and so upward and upward, and all was as 
cold as any stone. 

Nym. They say he cried out of sack. 5 

Host. Ay, that 'a did. 

Bard. And of women. 

3 Christom is a form of chrisom. A chrisom-child was one that died 
within a month after the birth; so called from the chrisom, which was a 
white cloth put upon the child at baptism, and used for its shroud, in case 
it did not outlive the first month. Bishop Taylor has the word in his Holy 
Dying, Chap. I. sec. 2 : " Every morning creeps out of a dark cloud, leaving 
behind it an ignorance and silence deep as midnight, and undiscerned as 
are the phantasms that make a chrisom-child to smile." 

4 The common people of England used to believe that death always took 
place just as the tide began to ebb. 

5 To cry out of or on a thing is to exclaim against it. See 2 Henry IV,, 
page 115, note 5. 



SCENE II. KING HENRY THE FIFTH. 75 

Host. Nay, that 'a did not. 

Boy. Yes, that 'a did ; and said they were devils incar- 
nate. 

Host. 'A never could abide carnation ; 'twas a colour he 
never liked. 

Boy. 'A said once, the Devil would have him about 
women. 

Host. 'A did in some sort, indeed, handle women ; but 
then he was rheumatic. 6 

Boy. Do you not remember, 'a saw a flea stick upon Bar- 
dolph's nose, and 'a said it was a black soul burning in hell- 
fire? 

Bard. Well, the fuel is gone that maintain'd that fire : 
that's all the riches I got in his service. 

Nym. Shall we shog? 7 the King will be gone from South- 
ampton. 

Pist. Come, let's away. — My love, give me thy lips. 
Look to my chattels and my movables : 
Let senses rule ; the word is Pitch and pay ; 
Trust none ; 

For oaths are straws, men's faiths are wafer-cakes, 
And hold -fast is the only dog, 8 my duck : 
Therefore caveto be thy counsellor. 
Go, clear thy crystals. 9 — Yoke-fellows in arms, 
Let us to France ; like horse-leeches, my boys, 
To suck, to suck, the very blood to suck ! 

6 Rheumatic is a Quicklyism for lunatic. — "Handle women " is speak of 
them, that is, meddle with them in his talk. 

7 To shog is the same as to jog. Generally used with off, shog off. 

8 Pistol puts forth a string of proverbs. " Pitch a?id pay, and go your 
way," is one in Florio's Collection. " Brag is a good dog, and Holdfast a 
better," is one of the others to which he alludes. 

9 He means, dry thine eyes. 



y6 KING HENRY THE FIFTH. ACT II. 

Boy. And that's but unwholesome food, they say. 
Pis/. Touch her soft mouth, and march. 
Bard. Farewell, hostess. \Kis sing her. 

Nym. I cannot kiss, that is the humour of it ; but, adieu. 
Fist. Let housewifery appear: keep close, I thee com- 
mand. 
Host. Farewell; adieu. \_Exeunt. 



Scene III. — France. A Room in the French King's Palace. 

Flourish. Enter the French King, attended; the Dauphin, 
the Duke of Burgundy, the Constable, and others. 

Fr. King. Thus come the English with full power upon us ; 
And more than carefully it us concerns 
To answer royally in our defences. 
Therefore the Dukes of Berri and of Bretagne, 
Of Brabant and of Orleans, shall make forth, — 
And you, Prince Dauphin, — with all swift dispatch, 
To line 1 and new repair our towns of war 
With men of courage and with means defendant ; 
For England his approaches makes as fierce 
As waters to the sucking of a gulf. 
It fits us, then, to be as provident 
As fear may teach us, out of late examples 
Left by the fatal and neglected English 
Upon our fields. 

Dau. My most redoubted father, 

It is most meet we arm us 'gainst the foe ; 
For peace itself should not so dull a kingdom, 

1 To line is to strengthen. Often so. See Macbeth, page 60, note 25. 



SCENE III. KING HENRY THE FIFTH. 77 

Though war nor no known quarrel were in question, 

But that defences, musters, preparations, 

Should be maintain'd, assembled, and collected, 

As were a war in expectation. 

Therefore, I say 'tis meet we all go forth 

To view the sick and feeble parts of France : 

And let us do it with no show of fear ; 

No, with no more than if we heard that England 

Were busied with a Whitsun morris-dance : 2 

For, my good liege, she is so idly king'd, 

Her sceptre so fantastically borne 

By a vain, giddy, shallow, humorous 3 youth, 

That fear attends her not. 

Co ft. O peace, Prince Dauphin ! 

You are too much mistaken in this King : 
Question your Grace the late ambassadors, — 
With what great state he heard their embassy, 
How well supplied with noble counsellors, 
How modest in exception, 4 and withal 
How terrible in constant resolution, — 
And you shall find his vanities forespent 
Were but the outside of the Roman Brutus, 
Covering discretion with a coat of folly ; 
As gardeners do with ordure hide those roots 

2 Morris is an old corruption of Morisco. The 7tiorris-dance is thought 
to have sprung from the Moors, and to have come through Spain, where it 
is said to be still delighted in by both natives and strangers, under the name 
of Fandango. 

3 Humorous is freakish, frolicsome, or governed by whims. Hotspur, 
having the same thing in view, calls him " the madcap Prince of Wales. ' 
See page 41, note 5. 

4 That is, modest, or diffident in raising objections, in finding fault, or 
expressing disapproval or dissent. 



78 KING HENRY THE FIFTH. ACT IL 

That shall first spring and be most delicate. 

Dau. Well, 'tis not so, my Lord High-Constable ; 
But though we think it so, it is no matter : 
In cases of defence 'tis best to weigh 
The enemy more mighty than he seems : 
So the proportions of defence are fill'd ; 
Which 5 of a weak and niggardly projection, 
Doth, like a miser, spoil his coat with scanting 
A little cloth. 

Fr. King. Think we King Harry strong ; 
And, princes, look you strongly arm to meet him. 
The kindred of him hath been flesh'd 6 upon us ; 
And he is bred out of that bloody strain 7 
That haunted us in our familiar paths : 
Witness our too-much memorable shame 
When Cressy battle fatally was struck, 
And all our princes captived by the hand 
Of that black name, Edward, Black Prince of Wales ; 
Whiles that his mighty sire — on mountain standing, 8 

5 The grammar of this passage is somewhat perplexed. Being is under- 
stood after which ; and not merely which, but the whole clause is the sub- 
ject of doth spoil. So that the meaning comes thus: The ordering of 
which after a weak and niggardly project or plan is like the work of a miser, 
who spoils his coat with scanting a little cloth. — For the meaning of pro- 
portions, in the line before, see page 57, note 36. 

6 To Jlesh, as the word is here used, is to feed as upon flesh; to satiate, 
to gorge. So in 2 Henry IV, iv. 5 : " The wild dog shall flesh his tooth in 
every innocent." For kindred senses of the same word see King John, 
page 126, note 5 ; and 2 Henry IV., page 62, note 19. 

7 Strain for stock, lineage, or race. So in Julius Ccesar, v. 1 : " If thou 
wert the noblest of thy strain" See, also, Much Ado, page 54, note 34. 

8 The battle of Cressy took place August 25, 1346, the Black Prince being 
then fifteen years old. The King had knighted him a short time before. 
During the battle, the King did in fact keep his station on the top of a hill, 
from whence he calmly surveyed the field of action, where the Prince was 



SCENE III. KING HENRY THE FIFTH. 79 

Up in the air, crown'd with the golden sun — 

Saw his heroical seed, and smiled to see him, 

Mangle the work of Nature, and deface 

The patterns that by God and by French fathers 

Had twenty years been made. This is a stem 

Of that victorious stock ; and let us fear 

The native mightiness and fate of him. 

Enter a Messenger. 

Mess. Ambassadors from Harry King of England 
Do crave admittance to your Majesty. 

Fr. King. We'll give them present audience. Go, and 
bring them. — [Exeunt Messenger and certain Lords. 
You see this chase is hotly follow'd, friends. 

Dau. Turn head, and stop pursuit ; for coward dogs 
Most spend their mouths, 9 when what they seem to threaten 
Runs far before them. Good my sovereign, 
Take up the English short ; and let them know 
Of what a monarchy you are the head : 
Self-love, my liege, is not so vile a sin 
As self-neglecting. 

Re-enter Lords, with Exeter and Train. 

Fr. King. From our brother England ? 

Exe. From him; and thus he greets your Majesty. 

in immediate command. When the fight was waxing hot and dangerous, 
the Earl of Warwick dispatched a messenger to the King to request suc- 
cours for the Prince. The King inquired if his son were killed or wounded, 
and, being answered in the negative, " Then," said he, " tell Warwick he 
shall have no assistance. Let the boy win his spurs. He and those who 
have him in charge shall earn the whole glory of the day." This reply is 
said to have so inspired the fighters, that they soon carried all before them. 
9 Spending the mouth was the sportsman's phrase for barking. 



80 KING HENRY THE FIFTH. ACT 11 

He wills you, in the name of God Almighty, 

That you divest yourself, and lay apart 

The borrow'd glories, that, by gift of Heaven, 

By law of Nature and of nations, 'long 

To him and to his heirs ; namely, the crown, 

And all wide-stretched honours that pertain, 

By custom and the ordinance of times, 

Unto the crown of France. That you may know 

'Tis no sinister nor no awkward 10 claim, 

Pick'd from the worm-holes of long-vanish'd days, 

Nor from the dust of old oblivion raked, 

He sends you this most memorable line, 11 [Gives a paper. 

In every branch truly demonstrative ; 

Willing you overlook his pedigree : 

And when you find him evenly derived 

From his most famed of famous ancestors, 

Edward the Third, he bids you then resign 

Your crown and kingdom, indirectly 12 held 

From him the native and true challenger. 

Fr. King. Or else what follows ? 

Exe. Bloody constraint : for, if you hide the crown 
Even in your hearts, there will he rake for it : 
Therefore in fiery tempest is he coming, 
In thunder and in earthquake, like a Jove, 
That, if requiring fail, he will compel ; 
And bids you, in the bowels of the Lord, 
Deliver up the crown ; and to take mercy 

10 Awkward is here used in its primitive sense of perverse or distorted,. 

11 Another instance of the passive and active forms used indiscriminately, 
— memorable for memorative, or that which reminds. — Line here is gene- 
alogy, or tracing of lineage. 

1-2 Indirectly in the sense of the Latin indirectus ; unjustly or wrongfully. 
Repeatedly so. See King John, page 51, note 7. 



SCENE in. KING HENRY THE FIFTH. 8 1 

On the poor souls for whom this hungry war 
Opens his vasty jaws : and on your head 
Turns he the widows' tears, the orphans' cries, 
The dead men's blood, the pining maidens' groans, 
For husbands, fathers, and betrothed lovers, 
That shall be swallow'd in this controversy. 
This is his claim, his threatening, and my message ; 
Unless the Dauphin be in presence here, 
To whom expressly I bring greeting too. 

Fr. King. For us, we will consider of this further : 
To-morrow shall you bear our full intent 
Back to our brother England. 

Dau - For the Dauphin, 

I stand here for him : what to him from England? 

Exe. Scorn and defiance ; slight regard, contempt, 
And any thing that may not misbecome 
The mighty sender, doth he prize you at. 
Thus says my King : An if w y0U r father's Highness 
Do not, in grant of all demands at large, 
Sweeten the bitter mock you sent his Majesty, 
He'll call you to so hot an answer of it, 
That caves and womby vaultages of France 
Shall chide your trespass, 14 and return your mock 
In second accent of his ordinance. 15 

Dau. Say, if my father render fair return, 
It is against my will ; for I desire 
Nothing but odds with England : to that end, 

18 An //has the force of ,/ simply, the two being used indifferently, and 
often both together, with the same sense. 

14 Chide in the double sense of resound and of rebuke. 

15 Ordinance for ordnance; the trisyllabic form being used for metre's 
sake. See King John, page 59, note 32. 



82 KING HENRY THE FIFTH. ACT III. 

As matching to his youth and vanity, 
I did present him with the Paris balls. 

Exe. He'll make your Paris Louvre shake for it, 
Were it the mistress-Court of mighty Europe : 
And be assured you'll find a difference, 
As we his subjects have in wonder found, 
Between the promise of his greener days 
And these he masters now : now he weighs time, 
Even to the utmost grain : that you shall read 
In your own losses, if he stay in France. 

Fr. Ki?ig. To-morrow shall you know our mind at full. 

Exe. Dispatch us with all speed, lest that our King 
Come here himself to question our delay ; 
For he is footed in this land already. 

Fr. King. You shall be soon dispatch'd with fair condi- 
tions : 
A night is but small breath and little pause 
To answer matters of this consequence. {Flourish. Exeunt. 



ACT III. 

Enter Chorus. 



Chor. Thus with imagined wing 1 our swift scene flies, 
In motion of no less celerity 

Than that of thought. Suppose that you have seen 
The well-appointed 2 King at Hampton pier 

1 That is, with the wing of imagination. Imagined for imaginative ; still 
another instance of the confusion of active and passive forms. See page 
38, note 4. 

2 Well-appointed, as often, for well-equipped or well-furnished. — Brave, 
in the next line, is splendid or superb; a frequent usage. 



CHORUS. KING HENRY THE FIFTH. 8$ 

Embark his royalty ; and his brave fleet 

With silken streamers the young Phoebus fanning : 

Play with your fancies ; and in them behold 

Upon the hempen tackle ship-boys climbing ; 

Hear the shrill whistle which doth order give 

To sounds confused ; behold the threaden sails, 

Borne with th' invisible and creeping wind, 

Draw the huge bottoms through the furrow'd sea, 

Breasting the lofty surge : O, do but think 

You stand upon the rivage, 3 and behold 

A city on th' inconstant billows dancing ; 

For so appears this fleet majestical, 

Holding due course to Harfleur. Follow, follow ! 

Grapple your minds to sternage 4 of this navy ; 

And leave your England, as dead midnight still, 

Guarded with grandsire, babies, and old women, 

Either past, or not arrived to, pith and puissance ; 

For who is he, whose chin is but enrich'd 

With one appearing hair, that will not follow 

These culPd and choice-drawn cavaliers to France? 

Work, work your thoughts, and therein see a siege ; 

Behold the ordnance on their carriages, 

With fatal mouths gaping on girded Harfleur. 

Suppose th' ambassador from the French comes back ; 

Tells Harry that the King doth offer him 

Catharine his daughter ; and with her, to 5 dowry, 

Some petty and unprofitable dukedoms. 



3 Rivage, the bank, or shore ; rivage, Fr. 

4 Sternage and steerage were formerly synonymous ; so also were sterns- 
man and steersman. And the stern being the place of the rudder, the words 
were used indifferently. 

5 To is here equivalent to as or for. See The Tempest, page 113, note 13. 



84 KING HENRY THE FIFTH. ACT III. 

The offer likes not : 6 and the nimble gunner 
With linstock 7 now the devilish cannon touches, 

[Alarum, and chambers go off, within. 
And down goes all before them. Still be kind, 
And eke out our performance with your mind. \_Exit. 



Scene I. — F?'ance. Before Harfleur. 

Alarums. Enter King Henry, Exeter, Bedford, Gloster, 
and Soldiers, with scaling-ladders. 

King. Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once 
more; 
Or close the wall up with our English dead ! 
In peace there's nothing so becomes a man 
As modest stillness and humility : 
But, when the blast of war blows in our ears, 
Then imitate the action of the tiger ; 
Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood, 
Disguise fair nature with hard-favour'd rage : 
Then lend the eye a terrible aspect ; 
Let it pry through the portage 1 of the head 
Like the brass cannon ; let the brow o'erwhelm it 
As fearfully as doth a galled rock 
O'erhang and jutty his confounded base, 
Swill'd with the wild and wasteful ocean. 2 

6 The offer pleases not. This use of to like is very frequent. 

7 Linstock was a stick with linen at one end, used as a match for firing 
guns. — Chambers were small pieces of ordnance. They were used on the 
stage, and the Globe Theatre was burnt by a discharge of them in 1613. 

1 Shakespeare uses portage for loop-holes or port-holes. 

2 To jutty is to project; jutties, or jetties, are projecting moles to break 
the force of the waves. — Confounded is vexed, or troubled. — Swill'd 



SCENE I. KING HENRY THE FIFTH. 85 

Now set the teeth, and stretch the nostril wide ; 

Hold hard the breath, and bend up every spirit 

To his full height ! — On, on, you noble English, 

Whose blood is fet 3 from fathers of war-proof! 

Fathers that, like so many Alexanders, 

Have in these parts from morn till even fought, 

And sheath'd their swords for lack of argument : 

Dishonour not your mothers ; now attest 

That those whom you call'd fathers did beget you ! 

Be copy 4 now to men of grosser blood, 

And teach them how to war ! — And you, good yeomen, 

Whose limbs were made in England, show us here 

The mettle of your pasture ; let us swear 

That you are worth your breeding : which I doubt not ; 

For there is none of you so mean and base, 

That hath not noble lustre in your eyes. 

I see you stand like greyhounds in the slips, 

Straining upon the start. The game's afoot : 5 

Follow your spirit ; and, upon this charge, 

Cry God for Harry, England, and Saint George! 

[Exeunt. Alarum, and chambers go off, within. 

Enter Nym, Bardolpk, Pistol, and the Boy. 

Bard. On, on, on, on, on ! to the breach, to the breach ! 

anciently was used for " wash'd much or long, drowned, surrounded by 
water." 

3 Fet is an old form of fetched. Shakespeare has it several times. 

4 Copy is here used for the thing copied, that is, the pattern or model. — 
" Men of grosser blood " are men of lower rank simply, — the " good yeo- 
men " who are next addressed. 

5 The Poet seems to have relished the old English sport of hunting, and 
he abounds in terms of the chase. In hunting foxes, for instance, the 
hounds were held back in slips or strings, till the game was got out of its 
hole, when it was said to be a-foot. See Prologue, page 38. 



86 KING HENRY THE FIFTH. ACT III. 

Nym. Pray thee, corporal, stay : the knocks are too hot ; 
and, for mine own part, I have not. a case of lives: 6 the 
humour of it is too hot, that is the very plain-song 7 of it. 

Pist. The plain-song is most just ; for humours do abound ; 

Knocks go and come ; God^s vassals di'op and die ; 
And sword and shield, in bloody field, 
Doth win immortal fame. 

Boy. Would I were in an alehouse in London ! I would 
give all my fame for a pot of ale and safety. 
Pist. And I : 

If wishes would prevail with me, 
My purpose should not fail with me, 

But thither would I hie. 
Boy. As duly, but not as truly, 

As bird doth sing on bough. 

Enter Fluellen. 

Flu. Got's plood ! — Up to the preaches, you rascals 1 
will you not up to the preaches? ^Driving them forward. 

Pist. Be merciful, great duke, 8 to men of mould ! 
Abate thy rage, abate thy manly rage ! 
Abate thy rage, great duke ! 
Good bawcock, bate thy rage ! use lenity, sweet chuck ! 9 

6 " A case of lives " is a pair of lives ; as " a case of pistols," " a case of 
poniards," " a case of masks." 

7 Plain-song 'was used of the uniform modulation of the old simple chant. 

8 That is, great commander ; duke being only a translation of the Latin 
dux. — " Men of mould" is men of earth, poor mortal men. 

9 Bawcock and chuck were terms of playful familiarity or endearment ; 
the one being from the French beau coq, the other a corruption of chicken. 
See Twelfth Night, page ioo, note 8. 



SCENE I. KING HENRY THE FIFTH. 8? 

Nym. These be good humours ! your honour wins bad 
humours. \_Exeicnt Nym, Bardolph, and Pistol, followed 

by Fluellen. 

Boy. As young as I am, I have observed these three 
swashers. 10 I am boy to them all three : but all they three, 
though they would serve me, could not be man to me; for, 
indeed, three such antics 11 do not amount to a man. For 
Bardolph, he is white-liver'd and red-faced ; by the means 
whereof 'a faces it out, but fights not. 12 For Pistol, he hath 
a killing tongue and a quiet sword ; by the means whereof 
'a breaks words, and keeps whole weapons. For Nym, he 
hath heard that men of few words are the best men ; 13 and 
therefore he scorns to say his prayers, lest 'a should be 
thought a coward : but his few bad words are match'd with 
as few good deeds ; for 'a never broke any man's head but 
his own, and that was against a post when he was drunk. 
They will steal any thing, and call it purchase. 14 Bardolph 
stole a lute-case, bore it twelve leagues, and sold it for three- 
halfpence. Nym and Bardolph are sworn brothers in filch- 
ing ; and in Calais they stole a fire-shovel : I knew by that 
piece of service the men would carry coals. 15 They would 

10 A swasher is a swaggerer, blusterer, or braggart. 

11 An antic is a buffoon. The word was also used of certain pictured 
oddities, such as would now be called caricatures. See Much Ado, page 
69, note 4. 

12 Has plenty of valour in his face, but none in his heart, and so fights 
with looks, not with blows ; that is, substitutes impudence for valour. 
Lily-liver d was a common epithet for a coward. See King Richard III., 
page 175, note 39. 

13 " The best men " are the bravest men, in Nym's dialect. So, a little 
after, "good deeds " are brave deeds. 

14 Purchase was a word of equivocal meaning in Shakespeare's time, 
and was often used as a euphemism for theft. See 1 Henry IV., p. 88, n. 22. 

15 As carrying coals was the lowest office in ancient households, the 



55 KING HENRY THE FIFTH. ACT III. 

have me as familiar with men's pockets as their gloves or 
their handkerchers : which makes much against my man- 
hood, if I should take from another's pocket to put into 
mine ; for it is plain pocketing-up of wrongs. 16 I must 
leave them, and seek some better service : their villainy goes 
against my weak stomach, and therefore I must cast it up. 

\_Exit. 
Re-e?iter Fluellen, Gower following. 

Gow. Captain Fluellen, you must come presently to the 
mines ; the Duke of Gloster would speak with you. 

Flu. To the mines ! tell you the duke, it is not so goot to 
come to the mines ; for, look you, the mines is not according 
to the disciplines of the wars : the concavities of it is not 
sufficient; for, look you, th' athversary — you may discuss 
unto the duke, look you — is diggt himself 17 four yard under 
the countermines : by Cheshu, I think 'a will plow up all, if 
there is not better directions. 

Gow. The Duke of Gloster, to whom the order of the 
siege is given, is altogether directed by an Irishman, a very 
valiant gentleman, i'faith. 

Flu. It is Captain Macmorris, is it not? 

Gow. I think it be. 

Flu. By Cheshu, he is an ass, as in the 'orld : I will verify 
as much in his peard : he has no more directions in the true 
disciplines of the wars, look you, of the Roman disciplines, 
than is a puppy-dog. 

phrase became a proverb of reproach. So, in Romeo and Juliet, i. i, 
Sampson says to his fellow-servant, " Gregory, o' my word, we'll not carry 
coals" ; meaning that, if that reproach be spit at him, he will fight. 

16 " Pocketing-up of wrongs " is an old phrase for putting up with in- 
sults instead of resenting them. See / Henry IV., page 147, note 24. 

17 Has dug his mines. Properly the order of the words should be re- 
versed ; as it is the besiegers who mine, and the besieged who countermine. 



SCENE I. KING HENRY THE FIFTH. 89 

Gow. Here a' comes ; and the Scots captain, Captain 
J amy, with him. 

Flu. Captain Jamy is a marvellous falorous gentleman, 
that is certain ; and of great expedition and knowledge in th' 
auncient wars, upon my particular knowledge of his direc- 
tions : by Cheshu, he will maintain his argument as well as 
any military man in the 'orld, in the disciplines of the pris- 
tine wars of the Romans. 

Enter Macmorris and Jamy. 

Jamy. I say gude-day, Captain Fluellen. 

Flu. Got-den 18 to your Worship, goot Captain Jamy. 

Gow. How now, Captain Macmorris ! have you quit the 
mines? have the pioneers 19 given o'er? 

Mac. By Chrish, la, tish ill done ; the work ish give over, 
the trompet sound the retreat. By my hand, I swear, and 
my father's soul, the work ish ill done ; it ish give over : I 
would have blowed up the town, so Chrish save me, la, in 
an hour : O, tish ill done, tish ill done ; by my hand, tish ill 
done ! 

Flu. Captain Macmorris, I peseech you now, will you 
voutsafe me, look you, a few disputations with you, as partly 
touching or concerning the disciplines of the wars, the Ro- 
man wars, in the way of argument, look you, and friendly 
communication ? partly to satisfy my opinion, and partly for 
the satisfaction, look you, of my mind, as touching the 
direction of the military discipline ; that is the point. 

Jamy. It sail be vary gude, gude feith, gude captains 

18 Good-den ox god-den was a familiar corruption of good day. 

19 Pioneers are a class of soldiers who take the lead in siege operations; 
military engineers. 



90 KING HENRY THE FIFTH. ACT III. 

baith : and I sail quit you with gude leve, 20 as I may pick 
occasion ; that sail I, mary. 

Mac. It is no time to discourse, so Chrish save me ; the 
day is hot, and the weather, and the wars, and the King, and 
the duke : it is no time to discourse. The town is be- 
seech'd, 21 and the trompet calls us to the breach ; and we 
talk, and, by Chrish, do nothing : 'tis shame for us all : so 
God sa' me, 'tis shame to stand still ; it is shame, by my 
hand : and there is throats to be cut, and works to be done ; 
and there is nothing done, so Chrish sa' me, la. 

Jamy. By the Mess, ere theise eyes of mine take them- 
selves to slomber, ai'l do gude service, or ai'l lig 22 i' the 
grund for it ; ay, or go to death ; and ai'l pay't as valor- 
ously as I may, that sail I suerly do, that is the breff and the 
long. Mary, I wad full fain heard some question 23 'tween 
you 'tway. 

Flu. Captain Macmorris, I think, look you, under your 
correction, there is not many of your nation — 

Mac. Of my nation ! What ish my nation ? what ish my 
nation ? Who talks of my nation is a villain, and a basterd, 
and a knave, and a rascal. 

Flu. Look you, if you take the matter otherwise than is 
meant, Captain Macmorris, peradventure I shall think you 
do not use me with that affability as in discretion you ought 
to use me, look you ; being as goot a man as yourself, both 
in the disciplines of wars, and in the derivation of my birth, 
and in other particularities. 

20 I shall, with your permission, requite you ; that is, answer you. 

21 Captain Macmorris means, apparently, not that the town is besieged, 
for that has been going on for some time, but that it is summoned or chal- 
lenged to surrender. 

22 Lig is the valiant and argumentative Scotchman's word for lie. 

23 Here, as often, question is talk, discourse, or conversation. See The 
Winter's Tale, page 155, note 13. 



SCENE II. KING HENRY THE FIFTH. 91* 

Mac. I do not know you so good a man as myself : so 
Chrish save me, I will cut off your head. 

Gow. Gentlemen both, you still mistake each other. 

[amy. A ! that's a foul fault. \A parley sounded. 

Goto. The town sounds a parley. 

Flu. Captain Macmorris, when there is more petter op- 
portunity to be required, look you, I will be so pold as to 
tell you I know the disciplines of wars ; and there is an end. 

[Exeunt. 

Scene II. — The Same. Before the gates of Harfleur. 

The Governor and some Citizens on the walls; the English 
Forces below. Enter King Henry and his Train. 

King. How yet resolves the governor of the town ? 
This is the latest parle we will admit : 
Therefore to our best mercy give yourselves ; 
Or, like to men proud of destruction, 
Defy us to our worst : for, as I am a soldier, 
A name that, in my thoughts, becomes me best, 
If I begin the battery once again, 
I will not leave the half-achieved Harfleur 
Till in her ashes she lie buried. 
The gates of mercy shall be all shut up ; 
And the flesh'd soldier, 1 — rough and hard of heart, — 
In liberty of bloody hand shall range 
With conscience wide as Hell ; mowing like grass 

1 Flesh'd, here, is made fierce, as bloodhounds are by the taste or smell 
of blood. Probably the sense of being seasoned or indurated with acts of 
cruelty is also involved. So in Richard III., iv. 3 : " Dighton and Forrest, 
whom I did suborn to do this ruthless piece of butchery, albeit they were 
Jlesh'd villains, bloody dogs," &c. 



92 KING HENRY THE FIFTH. ACT III. 

Your fresh-fair virgins and your flowering infants. 

What is it then to me, if impious war, — 

Array'd in flames, like to the prince of fiends, — 

Do, with his smirch'd complexion, all fell feats 

Enlink'd to waste and desolation ? 

What is't to me, when you yourselves are cause, 

If your pure maidens fall into the hand 

Of hot and forcing violation ? 

What rein can hold licentious wickedness 

When down the hill he holds his fierce career? 

We may as bootless spend our vain command 

Upon th' enraged soldiers in their spoil, 

As send precepts to the leviathan 

To come ashore. Therefore, you men of Harfleur, 

Take pity of your town and of 2 your people, 

Whiles yet my soldiers are in my command ; 

Whiles yet the cool and temperate wind of grace 

O'erblows 3 the filthy and contagious clouds 

Of heady murder, spoil, and villainy. 

If not, why, in a moment, look to see 

The blind and bloody soldier with foul hand, 

Defile the locks of your shrill-shrieking daughters ; 

Your fathers taken by the silver beards, 

And their most reverend heads dash'd to the walls ; 

Your naked infants spitted 4 upon pikes, 

Whiles the mad mothers with their howls confused 



2 Of and on were used indifferently in such cases. 

3 To overblow, here, is to blow or drive away, or keep off. 

4 A spit was an iron rod, to thrust through a fowl or piece of meat, so as 
to place it before the fire, and keep it turning till roasted. Hence the phrase 
" done to a turn." The word came to be used, as here, in a more general 
application. See Much Ado, page 49, note 22. 



SCENE III. KING HENRY THE FIFTH. 93 

Do break the clouds, as did the wives of Jewry 
At Herod's bloody-hunting slaughtermen. 
What say you ? will you yield, and this avoid ? 
Or, guilty in defence, be thus destroy'd ? 

Gov. Our expectation hath this day an end : 
The Dauphin, whom of succour we entreated, 
Returns us, that his powers are not yet ready 
To raise so great a siege. Therefore, dread King, 
We yield our town and lives to thy soft mercy. 
Enter our gates ; dispose of us and ours ; 
For we no longer are defensible. 5 

King. Open your gates. — Come, uncle Exeter, 
Go you and enter Harfleur ; there remain, 
And fortify it strongly 'gainst the French : 
Use mercy to them all. For us, dear uncle, — 
The Winter coming on, and sickness growing 
Upon our soldiers, — we'll retire to Calais. 
To-night in Harfleur will we be your guest ; 
To-morrow for the march are we addrest. 

[Flourish. The King, <5rv, enter the town. 

Scene III. — Rouen. A Room in the Palace. 
Enter Catharine and Alice. 6 
Cath. Alice, tu as ete en Angle terre, et tu paries Men le 



5 Defensible for defensive, or capable of defence ; the passive form with 
the active sense. So in many words. See 2 Henry IV., page 95, note 3. 

6 The dramatic purpose of this scene, if it have any, is not very obvious. 
But there is something of humour, at least there would be to an English 
audience, in the compliments Alice bestows upon the Princess in assuring 
her that she speaks English as well as the English themselves. And there 
is still more of humour implied in the act of thus preparing a conquest of 



94 KING HENRY THE FIFTH. ACT III. 

Alice. Unpen, madame. 

Cath. Je te prie m 'enseignez ; ilfautquefapprenne aparler. 
Comment appelez-vons la main en Anglais ? 

Alice. La main ? elle est appelee de hand. 

Cath. De hand. Etlesdoigts? 

Alice. Les doigts ? ma foi, foublie les doigts ; maisje me 
souviendrai. Les doigts ?je pense quHls sontappeles de fingres ; 
oui, de fingres. 

Cath. La main, de hand ; les doigts, de fingres. Je pense 
que je suis le bon ecolier ; j'ai gagne deux mots d' 'Anglais 
vitement. Comment appelez-vous les ongles ? 

Alice. Les ongles ? nous les appelons de nails. 

Cath. De nails. Ecoutez ; dites-?noi,sijeparlebien: de 
hand, de fingres, et de nails. 

Alice. C'est bien dil, madame ; il est fort bon Anglais. 

Cath. Dites-moi P Anglais pour le bras. 

Alice. De arm, madame. 

Cath. Et le coude ? 

Alice. De elbow. 

Cath. De elbow. Je m'enfais la repetition de tous les mots 
que vous ni'avez appris des a present. 

Alice. LI est trop difficile, madame, comme je pense. 

Cath. Excusez-moi, Alice ; ecoutez : de hand, de fingres, 
de nails, de arm, de bilbow. 

Alice. De elbow, madame. 

Cath. O Seigneur Dieu,je ni'en oublie ! de elbow. Com- 
ment appelez-vous le col? 

France by introducing a French Princess learning to chop English. As. the 
marriage is an essential part of the dramatic argument, it was doubtless in 
keeping with the Poet's method to represent Catharine in the process of 
learning the hero's tongue ; which could only be done by mixing up the 
two languages in a scene or two. 



SCENE in. KING HENRY THE FIFTH. 95 

Alice. De neck, madame. 

Cath. De nick. Et le menton ? 

Alice. De chin. 

Cath. De sin. Le col, de nick ; le menton, de sin. 

Alice. Oui. Sauf voire honneur, en verite, vous prononcez 
les mots aussi droit que les natifs d 'Angleterre. 

Cath. Je ne doute point d'apprendre, par la grace de Dieu, 
et en peu de temps. 

Alice. N'avez-vous pas deja oublie ce que je vous ai en- 
seigne ? 

Cath. Non,je reciter ai a vous promptement : de hand, de 
fingres, de mails, — 

Alice. De nails, madame. 

Cath. De nails, de arm, de ilbow. 

Alice. Sauf votre honneur, de elbow. 

Cath. Ainsi dis-je ; de elbow, de nick, et de sin. Com- 
tnent appelez-vous le pied et la robe ? 

Alice. De foot, madame; et de coun. 

Cath. De foot et de coun ! O Seigneur Dieu / ce sont 
mots de son mauvais, corruptible, gros, et impudique, et non 
pour les dames d* honneur denser : je ne voudrais prononcer 
ces mots devant les seigneurs de France pour tout le monde. 
Jlfaut de foot et de coun neanmoins. Je recite rat une autre 
fois ma lecon ense?nble : de hand, de fingres, de nails, de 
arm, de elbow, de nick, de sin, de foot, de coun. 

Alice. Excellent, madame / 

Cath. C est assez pour une fois : allons-nous a diner. 

[Exeunt. 



g6 KING HENRY THE FIFTH. ACT III. 



Scene IV. — The Same. Another Room in the Same. 

Enter the French King, the Dauphin, the Duke of Bourbon, 
the Constable of France, and others. 

Fr. King. Tis certain he hath pass'd the river Somme. 

Con. And if he be not fought withal, my lord, 
Let us not live in France ; let us quit all, 
And give our vineyards to a barbarous people. 

Dau. O Dieu vivant f shall a few sprays 1 of us, 
Our scions, put in wild and savage stock, 
Spirt up so suddenly into the clouds, 
And overlook their grafters ? 

Bour. Normans, but bastard Normans, Norman bastards ! 
Mort de ma vie, if they march along 
Unfought withal, but I will sell my dukedom, 
To buy a slobbery and a dirty farm 
In that nook-shotten 2 isle of Albion. 

Con. Dieu de batailles ! whence have they this mettle? 
Is not their climate foggy, raw, and dull ; 
On whom, as in despite, the Sun looks pale, 
Killing their fruit with frowns ? Can sodden water, 
A drench for sur-rein'd jades, 3 their barley-broth, 
Decoct their cold blood to such valiant heat ? 

1 Sprays is shoots, sprigs, or sprouts ; alluding to the origin of the Anglo- 
Norman stock. 

2 Shorten signifies any thing projected ; so nook-shotten isle is an isle that 
shoots out into capes, promontories, and necks of land, the very figure of 
Great Britain. 

3 Sur-rein'd is probably over-ridde?i or over-strained. It was common to 
give horses, over-ridden or feverish, ground malt and hot water mixed, 
which was called a mash. — Barley-broth is probably meant as a French- 
man's sneer at English ale, or beer. 



SCENE IV. KING HENRY THE FIFTH. 97 

And shall our quick blood, spirited with wine, 

Seem frosty ? 0, for honour of our land, 

Let us not hang like roping icicles 

Upon our houses' thatch, whiles a more frosty people 

Sweat drops of gallant youth in our rich fields, — 

Poor we may call them in their native lords ! 

Dau. By faith and honour, 
Our madams mock at us, and plainly say 
Our mettle is bred out. 

Bour. They bid us to the English dancing-schools, 
And teach lavoltas high and swift corantos ; 4 
Saying our grace is only in our heels, 
And that we are most lofty runaways. 

Fr. King. Where is Montjoy the herald? speed him 
hence ; 
Let him greet England with our sharp defiance. — 
Up, princes ! and, with spirit of honour edged 
More sharper than your swords, hie to the field : 
Charles Delabreth, 5 High-Constable of France ; 
You Dukes of Orleans, Bourbon, and of Berri, 
Alencon, Brabant, Bar, and Burgundy ; 
Jaques Chatillon, Rambures, Vaudemont, 
Beaumont, Grandpre, Roussi, and Fauconberg, 

4 The coranto was a lively dance for two persons. See Twelfth Night, 
page 40, note 22. — The lavolta was a dance of Italian origin, and seems 
to have been something like the modern waltz, only, perhaps, rather more 
so. It is thus described by Sir John Davies 

A lofty jumping, or a leaping round, 

Where arm in arm two dancers are entwin'd, 

And whirl themselves with strict embracements bound, 

And still their feet an anapest do sound. 

5 This should be Charles D'Albret; but the metre would not admit of 
the change. Shakespeare followed Holinshed, who calls him Delabreth. 



98 KING HENRY THE FIFTH. ACT III. 

Foix, Lestrale, Bouciqualt, and Charolois ; 

High dukes, great princes, barons, lords, and knights, 

For your great seats, now quit 6 you of great shames. 

Bar Harry England, that sweeps through our land 

With pennons painted in the blood of Harfleur : 

Rush on his host, as doth the melted snow 

Upon the valleys, whose low vassal seat 

The Alps doth spit and void his rheum upon : 

Go down upon him, — you have power enough, — 

And in a captive chariot into Rouen 

Bring him our prisoner. 

Con. This becomes the great. 

Sorry am I his numbers are so few, 
His soldiers sick, and famish 'd in their march ; 
For I am sure, when he shall see our army, 
He'll drop his heart into the sink of fear, 
And, for achievement, offer us his ransom. 7 

Fr. King. Therefore, Lord Constable, haste on Montjoy ; 
And let ,him say to England, that we send 
To know what willing ransom he will give. — 
Prince Dauphin, you shall stay with us in Rouen. 

Dau. Not so, I do beseech your Majesty. 

Fr. King. Be patient ; for you shall remain with us. — 
Now forth, Lord Constable, and princes all, 
And quickly bring us word of England's fall. \_Exennt. 

6 Quit for acquit; the sense being clear, release, or exonerate yourselves. 
See As You Like It, page 78, note 2. 

7 That is, instead of achieving a victory over us, make a proposal to buy 
himself off with a ransom. 



SCENE V. KING HENRY THE FIFTH. 99 

Scene V. — The English Camp in Picardy. 
E?iter, severally, Gower and Fluellen. 

Gow. How now, Captain Fluellen ! come you from the 
bridge ? 

Flu. I assure you, there is very excellent services com- 
mitted at the pridge. 1 

Gow. Is the Duke of Exeter safe ? 

Flu. The Duke of Exeter is as magnanimous as Agamem- 
non ; and a man that I love and honour with my soul, and 
my heart, and my duty, and my life, and my living, and my 
uttermost power : he is not — Got be praised and plessed ! 
— any hurt in the 'orld ; but keeps the pridge most val- 
iantly, with excellent discipline. There is an auncient there 
at the pridge, — I think in my very conscience he is as val- 
iant a man as Mark Antony ; and he is a man of no estima- 
tion in the 'orld ; but I did see him do gallant service. 

Gow. What do you call him ? 

Flu. He is call'd Auncient Pistol. 

Gow. I know him not. 

Flu. Here is the man. 

Enter Pistol. 

Fist. Captain, I thee beseech to do me favours : 
The Duke of Exeter doth love thee well. 

1 After Henry had passed the Somme, the French endeavoured to inter- 
cept him in his passage to Calais ; and for that purpose attempted to break 
down the only bridge that there was over the small river of Ternois. But 
Henry, having notice of their design, sent a part of his troops before him, 
who, attacking and putting the French to flight, preserved the bridge till the 
whole English army arrived and passed over it. 



100 KING HENRY THE FIFTH. ACT III. 

Flu. Ay, I praise Got ; and I have merited some love at 
his hands. 

Pist. Bardolph, a soldier, firm and sound of heart, 
Of buxom 2 valour, hath, by cruel fate, 
And giddy Fortune's furious fickle wheel, — 
That goddess blind, 
That stands upon the rolling, restless stone, — 

Flu. By your patience, Auncient Pistol. Fortune is 
painted plind, with a muffler afore her eyes, to signify to 
you that Fortune is plind ; and she is painted also with a 
wheel, to signify to you, which is the moral of it, that she is 
turning, and inconstant, and mutability, and variation : and 
her foot, look you, is fixed upon a spherical stone, which 
rolls, and rolls, and rolls. In good truth, the poet makes a 
most excellent description of it : Fortune is an excellent 
moral. 

Pist. Fortune is Bardolph's foe, and frowns on him ; 
For he hath stolen a pax, 3 and hanged must 'a be, 
A damned death ! 

Let gallows gape for dog ; let man go free, 
And let not hemp his windpipe suffocate : 
But Exeter hath given the doom of death 
For pax of little price. 

Therefore, go speak ; the duke will hear thy voice ; 
And let not Bardolph's vital thread be cut 
With edge of penny cord and vile reproach : 

2 In the Saxon and our elder English, buxom meant pliant, yielding, 
obedient ; but it was also used for lusty, rampant. Pistol would be more 
likely to take the popular sense than one founded on etymology. 

3 The pax is said to have been a small piece of plate, sometimes with the 
Crucifixion engraved or embossed upon it, which at a certain point in the 
Mass was offered to the laity to be kissed : Osculatorium was another name 
for it. 



SCENE v. KING HENRY THE FIFTH. IOI 

Speak, captain, for his life, and I will thee requite. 

Flu. Auncient Pistol, I do partly understand your mean- 
ing. 

Fist. Why, then rejoice therefore. 

Flu. Certainly, auncient, it is not a thing to rejoice at : 
for if, look you, he were my prother, I would desire the duke 
to use his goot pleasure, and put him to execution ; for dis- 
cipline ought to be used. 

Fist. Die and be damn'd ! andfoo for thy friendship ! 

Flu. It is well. 

Fist. The fig of Spain ! 4 {Exit 

Flu. Very goot. 

Gow. Why, this is an arrant counterfeit rascal ; I remem- 
ber him now ; a cutpurse. 

Flu. I'll assure you, 'a utter'd as prave 'ords at the pridge 
as you shall see in a Summer's day. But it is very well ; what 
he has spoke to me, that is well, I warrant you, when time is 
serve. 

Gow. Why, 'tis a gull, a fool, a rogue, that now and then 
goes to the wars, to grace himself, at his return into London, 
under the form of a soldier. And such fellows are perfect in 
the great commanders' names : and they will learn you by 
rote where services were done ; at such and such a sconce, 5 
at such a breach, at such a convoy ; who came off bravely, 
who was shot, who disgraced, what terms the enemy stood 

4 What is here called " the fig of Spain " was by no means confined to 
that country, nor did it originate there. It was a coarse gesture of con- 
temptuous insult, made by thrusting the thumb between the middle and fore 
fingers, so as to form a rude likeness to a certain disease which was called 
the feus as far back at least as the days of classic Rome. 

5 A sconce was a blockhouse or chief fortress, for the most part round in 
fashion of a head ; hence the head is ludicrously called a sconce ; a lantern 
was also called a sconce, because of its round form. 



102 KING HENRY THE FIFTH. ACT III. 

on ; and this they con perfectly in the phrase of war, which 
they trick up with new- coined oaths : and what a beard of the 
general's cut, 6 and a horrid suit of the camp, will do among 
foaming bottles and ale-washed wits, is wonderful to be 
thought on. But you must learn to know such slanders of 
the age, 7 or else you may be marvellously mistook. 

Flu. I tell you what, Captain Gower; I do perceive he 
is not the man that he would gladly make show to the 'orld 
he is : if I find a hole in his coat, I will tell him my mind. 
\_Drum within.~\ Hark you, the King is coming ; and I must 
speak with him from the pridge. 8 — 

Enter King Henry, Gloster, and Soldiers. 

Got pless your Majesty ! 

King. How now, Fluellen ! earnest thou from the bridge ? 

Flu. Ay, so please your Majesty. The Duke of Exeter 
has very gallantly maintain'd the pridge : the French is gone 
off, look you ; and there is gallant and most prave passages : 
marry, th' athversary was have possession of the pridge ; but 
he is enforced to retire, and the Duke of Exeter is master of 
the pridge : I can tell your Majesty, the duke is a prave man. 

King. What men have you lost, Fluellen ? 

Flu. The perdition of th' athversary hath been very great, 
reasonable great : marry, for my part, I think the duke hath 
lost never a man, but one that is like to be executed for 
robbing a church, — one Bardolph, if your Majesty know the 

6 The English used to be very particular about the cut of their beards. 
Certain ranks and callings had their peculiar style ; and soldiers appear to 
have affected what was called the spade cut and the stilletto cut. 

"> Nothing was more common than such huffcap pretending braggarts as 
Pistol in the Poet's age ; they are the continual subject of satire to his con- 
temporaries. 

8 " I must tell him what was done at the bridge." 



SCENE v„ KING HENRY THE FIFTH. IO3 

man : his face is all bubukles, and whelks, 9 and knobs, and 
flames o' fire ; and his lips plows at his nose, and it is like a 
coal of fire, sometimes plue and sometimes red ; but his nose 
is executed, and his fire's out. 

King. We would have all such offenders so cut off: 
and we give express charge that, in our marches through the 
country, there be nothing compell'd from the villages, nothing 
taken but paid for, 10 none of the French upbraided or abused 
in disdainful language ; for when lenity and cruelty play for 
a kingdom, the gentler gamester is the soonest winner. 

Tucket sounds. Enter Montjoy. 

Mont. You know me by my habit. 11 

King. Well, then I know thee : what shall I know of thee ? 

Mont. My master's mind. 

King. Unfold it. 

Mont. Thus says my King : Say thou to Harry of Eng- 
land : Though we seem'd dead, we did but sleep ; advantage 
is a better soldier than rashness. Tell him, we could have 
rebuked him at Harfleur, but that we thought not good to 
bruise an injury till it were full ripe : 12 now we speak upon 
our cue, and our voice is imperial. England shall repent his 
folly, see his weakness, and admire our sufferance. Bid him, 
therefore, consider of his ransom ; which must proportion 
the losses we have borne, the subjects we have lost, the dis- 
grace we have digested ; which, in weight to re-answer, his 

9 Bubukles are blotches or botches ; whelks are pustules or wheals. 

10 That is, nothing taken without being paid for. This use of but with 
the force of without occurs repeatedly. See Hamlet, page 68, note 3. 

11 The person of a herald being, by the laws of war, inviolable, was dis- 
tinguished by a richly-emblazoned dress. 

12 The implied image is of a sore, as a boil or carbuncle, which is best 
let alone till it has come to a head. — Cue is used in the sense of turn. 



104 KING HENRY THE FIFTH. ACT III. 

pettiness would bow under. For our losses, his exchequer is 
too poor ; for the effusion of our blood, the muster of his 
kingdom too faint a number ; and, for our disgrace, his own 
person, kneeling at our feet, but a weak and worthless satis- 
faction. To this add defiance : and tell him, for conclusion, 
he hath betray'd his followers, whose condemnation is pro- 
nounced. So far my King and master ; so much my office. 

King. What is thy name ? I know thy quality. 

Mont. Montjoy. 

King. Thou dost thy office fairly. Turn thee back, 
And tell thy King, I do not seek him now ; 
But could be willing to inarch on to Calais 
Without impeachment : 13 for, to say the sooth, — 
Though 'tis no wisdom to confess so much 
Unto an enemy of craft and vantage, 14 — ■ 
My people are with sickness much enfeebled ; 
My numbers lessen'd ; and those few I have, 
Almost no better than so many French ; 
Who when they were in health, I tell thee, herald, 
I thought upon one pair of English legs 
Did march three Frenchmen. — Yet, forgive me, God, 
That I do brag thus ! — this your air of France 
Hath blown that vice in me ; 15 I must repent. 
Go, therefore, tell thy master here I am ; 
My ransom is this frail and worthless trunk ; 
My army but a weak and sickly guard : 



13 Without impediment ; an old use of impeachment, now obsolete. Thus 
in Holinshed : " But the passage was now so i?7ipeached with stakes in the 
botome of the foord, that he could not passe." 

14 An enemy both cunning in arts of strategy and having the advantage 
in ground and numbers. 

15 " Hath puffed me up with that vanity." 



SCENE VI. KING HENRY THE FIFTH. 105 

Yet, God before, 16 tell him we will come on, 
Though France himself, and such another neighbour, 
Stand in our way. There's for thy labour, Montjoy. 

[ Gives a purse. 
Go, bid thy master well advise himself: 17 
If we may pass, we will ; if we be hinder'd, 
We shall your tawny ground with your red blood 
Discolour : and so, Montjoy, fare you well. 
The sum of all our answer is but this : 
We would not seek a battle, as we are ; 
Nor, as we are, we say, we will not shun it : 
So tell your master. 

Mont. I shall deliver so. Thanks to your Highness. 

\_Exit. 

G/o. I hope they will not come upon us now. 

King. We are in God's hand, brother, not in theirs. 
March to the bridge ; it now draws toward night : 
Beyond the river we'll encamp ourselves ; 
And on to-morrow bid them march away. [Exeunt. 

Scene VI. — The French Camp, near Agincourt 

Enter the Constable of France, the Lord Rambures, the 
Duke ^/"Orleans, the Dauphin, and others. 

Con. Tut ! I have the best armour of the world.— Would 
it were day ! 

Or/. You have an excellent armour; but let my horse 
have his due. 

Con. It is the best horse of Europe. 

16 That is, " God being our guide." See page 57, note 37. 

17 Advise, again, as before : bethink himself, consider. Page 54, note 27. 



106 KING HENRY THE FIFTH. ACT III. 

Orl. Will it never be morning ? 

Dau. My Lord of Orleans, and my Lord High-Constable, 
you talk of horse and armour, — 

Orl. You are as well provided of both as any prince in 
the world. 

Dau. What a long night is this ! — I will not change my 
horse with any that treads but on four pasterns. Qa, ha! 
he bounds from the earth, as if his entrails were hairs ; x le 
cheval volant, the Pegasus, qui a les narines de feu / When 
I bestride him, I soar, I am a hawk : he trots the air ; the 
earth sings when he touches it ; the basest horn of his hoof 
is more musical than the pipe of Hermes. 

Orl. He's of the colour of the nutmeg. 

Dau. And of the heat of the ginger. It is a beast for 
Perseus : he is pure air and fire ; and the dull elements of 
earth and water never appear in him, 2 but only in patient 
stillness while his rider mounts him : he is, indeed, a horse ; 
and all other jades you may call beasts. 3 

Con. Indeed, my lord, it is a most absolute and excellent 
horse. 

Dau. It is the prince of palfreys ; his neigh is like the 
bidding of a monarch, and his countenance enforces homage. 

Orl. No more, cousin. 

1 Alluding to the bounding of tennis-balls, which were stuffed with hair. 

2 Alluding to the ancient doctrine that men and animals, as well as other 
things, were all made up of the four elements, earth, water, air, and fire, and 
that the higher natures were rendered so by the preponderance of the two 
latter in their composition. Thus, in Antony and Cleopatra, v. 2, the heroine 
says, "I am fire and air; my other elements I give to baser life." The 
Poet has divers allusions to the doctrine. 

3 It appears from this ihdXjade and horse were sometimes used simply as 
equivalent terms. On the other hand, beast is here meant to convey a note 
of contempt, like the \jaAm jumentum, as of an animal fit only for the cart or 
packsaddle. 



SCENE VI. KING HENRY THE FIFTH. 107 

Dau. Nay, the man hath no wit that cannot, from the 
rising of the lark to the lodging of the lamb, vary deserved 
praise on my palfrey : it is a theme as fluent as the sea ; turn 
the sands into eloquent tongues, and my horse is argument 
for them all : 'tis a subject for a sovereign to reason on, and for 
a sovereign's sovereign to ride on ; and for the world, familiar 
to us and unknown, to lay apart their particular functions, 
and wonder at him. I once writ a sonnet in his praise, and 
began thus : Wonder of Nature, — 

Or/. I have heard a sonnet begin so to one's mistress. 

Dau. Then did they imitate that which I composed to my 
courser ; for my horse is my mistress. 

Or/. Your mistress bears well. 

Dau. Me well ; which is the prescript praise and perfec- 
tion of a good and particular mistress. 

Con. Mafoi, methought yesterday your mistress shrewdly 
shook your back. 

Dau. So, perhaps, did yours. 

Co ?i. Mine was not bridled. 

Dau. I tell thee, Constable, my mistress wears her own 
hair. 4 

Con. I could make as true a boast as that, if I had a 
sow to my mistress. 

Dau. Le chien est retourne a son propre vomissement, et /a 
truie /avee au bourbier 5 : thou makest use of any thing. 

4 Referring to the custom which some ladies had, as, it is said, some still 
have, of wearing hair not their own. The Dauphin is jibing and flouting 
the Constable upon the presumed qualities of the lady whom he calls his 
mistress. See The Merchant, page 142, note 19. 

5 It has been remarked that Shakespeare was habitually conversant with 
his Bible : we have here a strong presumptive proof that he read it, at least 
occasionally, in French. This passage will be found almost literally in the 
Geneva Bible, 1588. 2 Peter, ii. 22. 



108 KING HENRY THE FIFTH. ACT III. 

Con. Yet do I not use my horse for my mistress j or any 
such proverb, so little kin to the purpose. 

Ram. My Lord Constable, the armour that I saw in your 
tent to-night, are those stars or suns upon it? 

Con. Stars, my lord. 

Dau. Some of them will fall to-morrow, I hope. 

Con. And yet my sky shall not want. 

Dau. That may be, for you bear a many superfluously, 
and 'twere more honour some were away. 

Con. Even as your horse bears your praises ; who would 
trot as well, were some of your brags dismounted. 

Dau. Would I were able to load him with his desert ! — 
Will it never be day ? — I will trot to-morrow a mile, and my 
way shall be paved with English faces. 

Con. I will not say so, for fear I should be faced out of 
my way : but I would it were morning ; for I would fain be 
about the ears of the English. 

Ram. Who will go to hazard with me for twenty prisoners ? 

Con. You must first go yourself to hazard, ere you have 
them. 

Dau. 'Tis midnight ; I'll go arm myself. [Exit. 

Orl. The Dauphin longs for morning. 

Ram. He longs to eat the English. 

Con. I think he will eat all he kills. 

Orl. By the white hand of my lady, he's a gallant prince. 

Con. Swear by her foot, that she may tread out the oath. 6 

Orl. He is, simply, the most active gentleman of France. 

Con. Doing is activity ; and he will still be doing. 7 

Orl. He never did harm, that I heard of. 



6 To tread out an oath is to dance it out, probably. 

7 Here, as often, still is continually or always. 



SCENE VI. KING HENRY THE FIFTH. IO9 

Con. Nor will do none to-morrow : he will keep that good 
name still. 

Orl. I know him to be valiant. 

Con. I was told that by one that knows him better than 
you. 4 

Orl. What's he? 

Con. Marry, he told me so himself; and he said he cared 
not who knew it. 

Orl. He needs not ; it is no hidden virtue in him. 

Con. By my faith, sir, but it is ; never any body saw it 
but his lacquey : 'tis a hooded valour ; and when it appears, 
it will bate. 8 

0?'l. Ill-will never said well. 

Con. I will cap that proverb with — There is flattery in 
friendship. 

Orl. And I will take up that with — Give the Devil his due. 

Con. Well placed : there stands your friend for the Devil : 
have at the very eye of that proverb, with — A pox of the 
Devil. 

Orl. You are the better at proverbs, by how much — A 
fool's bolt 9 is soon shot. 

Con. You have shot over. 

Orl. 'Tis not the first time you were overshot. 10 

Enter a Messenger. 

8 This pun depends upon the equivocal use of bate. When a hawk is 
unhooded, her first action is to bate, that is, beat her wings, or flutter. The 
Constable would insinuate that the Dauphin's courage, when he prepares 
for encounter, will bate, that is, soon diminish or evaporate. Hooded is 
blindfolded. 

9 A bolt was a short, thick, blunt arrow, for shooting near objects, and 
so requiring little or no skill. See Much Ado, page 25, note 6. 

10 Overshot, here, probably means disgraced or put to shame ; though 
one of its meanings is intoxicated. 



IIO KING HENRY THE FIFTH. ACT III. 

Mess. My Lord High- Constable, the English lie within 
fifteen hundred paces of your tents. 

Con. Who hath measured the ground? 

Mess. The Lord Grandpre. 

Con. A valiant and most expert gentleman. — Would it 
were day ! — Alas, poor Harry of England ! he longs not for 
the dawning, as we do. 

Orl. What a wretched and peevish 11 fellow is this King 
of England, to mope with his fat-brain'd followers so far out 
of his knowledge ! 

Con. If the English had any apprehension, 12 they would 
run away. 

Orl. That they lack ; for if their heads had any intellectual 
armour, they could never wear such heavy head-pieces. 

Ram. That island of England breeds very valiant crea- 
tures ; their mastiffs are of unmatchable courage. 

Orl. Foolish curs, that run winking into the mouth of a 
Russian bear, and have their heads crush'd like rotten apples ! 
You may as well say, that's a valiant flea that dare eat his 
breakfast on the lip of a lion. 

Con. Just, just ; and the men do sympathize with the mas- 
tiffs in robustious and rough coming-on, leaving their wits 
with their wives : and then give them great meals of beef, 
and iron and steel, they will eat like wolves, and fight like 
devils. 

Orl. Ay, but these English are shrewdly out of beef. 

11 Peevish was often used in the sense of mad ox foolish. So in The Com- 
edy of Errors, iv. i : " How now ! a madman ? why, thou peevish sheep, 
what ship of Epidamnum stays for me ? " — To mope is to move or act 
languidly or drowsily, or as in a half-conscious state. — The Poet uses fat- 
brain'd and fat-witted for dull or stupid. 

12 Apprehension for mental quickness, intelligence, or aptness to perceive ; 
as to apprehend is, properly, to grasp, seize, or lay hold of. 



CHORUS. KING HENRY THE FIFTH. Ill 

Con. Then shall we find to-morrow they have only stomachs 
to eat, and none to fight. Now is it time to arm ; come, 
shall we about it ? 

Orl. It is now two o'clock : but, let me see, — by ten 
We shall have each a hundred Englishmen. \_Exeunt. 



ACT IV. 

Enter Chorus. 



Chor. Now entertain conjecture of a time 
When creeping murmur and the poring 1 dark 
Fills the wide vessel of the Universe. 
From camp to camp, through the foul womb of night, 
The hum of either army stilly sounds, 
That the fix'd sentinels 2 almost receive 
The secret whispers of each other's watch : 
Fire answers fire ; and through their paly flames 
Each battle sees the other's umber'd 3 face : 
Steed threatens steed, in high and boastful neighs 
Piercing the night's dull ear ; and from the tents, 

1 To pore is to look intently, needfully, or with strained vision ; and por- 
ing is here, no doubt, an instance of what is called transferred epithet : the 
darkness in which we look as aforesaid, ox grope. 

2 That is, the sentinels stationed, or remaining at their posts. — That has 
the force of so that ; a very frequent usage. 

3 It has been said that the distant visages of the soldiers would appear 
of an umber colour when beheld through the light of midnight fires. I 
suspect that nothing more is meant than shadow d face. The epithet paly 
flames is against the other interpretation. Umbre for shadow is common in 
our elder writers. 



112 KING HENRY THE FIFTH. ACT IV. 

The armourers, accomplishing the knights, 

With busy hammers closing rivets up, 4 

Give dreadful note of preparation : 

The country cocks do crow, the clocks do toll, 

And the third hour of drowsy morning name. 

Proud of their numbers, and secure in soul, 

The confident and over-lusty French 

Do the low-rated English play at dice ; 5 

And chide the cripple tardy-gaited night, 

Who, like a foul and ugly witch, doth limp 

So tediously away. The poor condemned English, 

Like sacrifices, by their watchful fires 

Sit patiently, and inly ruminate 

The morning's danger ; and their gesture sad 

Investing lank-lean cheeks, 6 and war-worn coats, 

Presenteth them unto the gazing Moon 

So many horrid ghosts. O, now, who will behold 

The royal captain of this ruin'd band 

4 This does not solely refer to the riveting the plate armour before it was 
put on, but also to a part when it was on. The top of the cuirass had a 
little projecting bit of iron that passed through a hole in the bottom of the 
casque. When both were put on, the armourer presented himself, with his 
riveting hammer, to close the rivet up. 

5 The Poet took this from Holinshed : " The Frenchmen in the meane 
while, as though they had beene sure of victorie, made great triumph ; for 
the capteins had determined how to divide the spoile, and the soldiers the 
night before had plaid the Englishmen at dice." 

G The metaphor of a gesture investing cheeks seems rather harsh and 
strained. But gesture, in the sense of the Latin original, may very well be 
used of a look, or any form of expression addressed to the eye, And to 
speak of a look as overspreading or covering the face, is legitimate enough. 
We have a like figure in Much Ado, iv. I : " I am so attired in wonder." 
Also, in Sidney's Astrophel : " Anger invests the face with a lovely grace." 
— Perhaps it should be added that and connects coats to gesture, not to 
cheeks : " and their war-worn coats." See Critical Notes. 



CHORUS. KING HENRY THE FIFTH. I 1 3 

Walking from watch to watch, from tent to tent, 

Let him cry, Praise and glory on his head! 

For forth he goes and visits all his host ; 

Bids them good morrow with a modest smile, 

And calls them brothers, friends, and countrymen. 

Upon his royal face there is no note 

How dread an army hath enrounded him ; 

Nor doth he dedicate one jot of colour 

Unto the weary and all-watched night ; 

But freshly looks, and over-bears attaint 7 

With cheerful semblance and sweet majesty ; 

That every wretch, pining and pale before, 

Beholding him, plucks comfort from his looks : 

A largess universal, like the Sun, 

His liberal eye doth give to every one, 

Thawing cold fear -> that mean and gentle all 

Behold, as may unworthiness define, 

A little touch of Harry in the night. 8 

And so our scene must to the battle fly ; 

Where — O for pity ! — we shall much disgrace 

With four or five most vile and ragged foils, 

Right ill-disposed in brawl ridiculous, 

The name of Agincourt. Yet, sit and see ; 

Minding 9 true things by what their mockeries be. [Exit 

7 Attaint, or taint, was often used for attainture or attainder, in the sense 
of impeachment or accusation. The meaning is, that the King by his brave 
and cheerful look overcomes all disposition on the part of the soldiers to 
blame or reproach him for the plight they are in. 

8 The meaning, as I take it, is, " so that, to describe the thing inade- 
quately, men of all ranks in the army get a little glimpse or taste of Harry 
in the night." See Critical Notes. 

9 Minding, here, is the same as calling to mind. 



I 14 KING HENRY THE FIFTH. ACT IV. 

Scene I. — France. The English Camp at Agincourt. 

Enter King Henry, Bedford, and Gloster. 

King. Gloster, 'tis true that we are in great danger ; 
The greater therefore should our courage be. — 
Good morrow, brother Bedford. — God Almighty ! 
There is some soul of goodness in things evil, 
Would men observingly distil it out ; 
For our bad neighbour makes us early stirrers, 
Which is both healthful and good husbandry : 
Besides, they are our outward consciences, 
And preachers to us all ; admonishing 
That we should 'dress ] us fairly for our end. 
Thus may we gather honey from the weed, 
And make a moral of the Devil himself. — 

Enter Erpingham. 

Good morrow, old Sir Thomas Erpingham : 
A good soft pillow for that good white head 
Were better than a churlish turf of France. 

Erp. Not so, my liege : this lodging likes me better, 
Since I may say, Now lie I like a king. 

King. 'Tis good for men to love their present pains 
Upon example ; so the spirit is eased : 
And, when the mind is quicken'd, out of doubt 
The organs, though defunct and dead before, 
Break up their drowsy grave, and newly move 

1 Here 'dress is a contraction of address, which the Poet often uses for 
make ready ox prepare. So in Macbeth, i. 7 : " Was the hope drunk wherein 
you * dress' d yourself? " See, also, As You Like It, page 139, note 24. 



SCENE I. KING HENRY THE FIFTH. 115 

With casted slough and fresh legerity. 2 

Lend me thy cloak, Sir Thomas. — Brothers both, 

Commend me to the princes in our camp ; 

Do my good morrow to them ; and anon 

Desire them all to my pavilion. 

Glo. We shall, my liege. 

Erp. Shall I attend your Grace ? 

King. No, my good knight ; 

Go with my brothers to my lords of England : 
I and my bosom must debate awhile, 
And then I would no other company. 

Erp. The Lord in Heaven bless thee, noble Harry ! 

\_Exeunt Gloster, Bedford, and Erpingham. 

King. God-a-mercy, old heart ! thou speak'st cheerfully. 

Enter Pistol. 

Pist. Qui va la ? 

King. A friend. 

Pist. Discuss unto me ; art thou officer? 
Or art thou base, common, and popular? 

King. I am a gentleman of a company. 

Pist. Trail'st thou the puissant pike ? 

King. Even so. What are you ? 

Pist. As good a gentleman as the Emperor. 

King. Then you are a better than the King. 

Pist. The King's a bawcock, and a heart of gold, 
A lad of life, an imp 3 of fame ; 
Of parents good, of fist most valiant : 

2 The allusion is to the casting of the slough or skin of the snake annu- 
ally, by which act he is supposed to regain new vigour and fresh youth. 
Legerity is lightness, nimbleness. Legerete, French. 

3 The original meaning of imp is g raff, scion, or sprout. See 2 Henry the 
Fourth, page 275, note I. 



Il6 KING HENRY THE FIFTH. ACT IV. 

I kiss his dirty shoe, and from my heart-strings 
I love the lovely bully. What is thy name ? 

King. Harry le Roi. 

Fist. Le Roy ! 
A Cornish name : art thou of Cornish crew? 

King. No, I am a Welshman. 4 

Fist. Know'st thou Fluellen? 

King. Yes. 

Fist. Tell him, I'll knock his leek about his pate 
Upon Saint Davy's day. 5 

King. Do not you wear your dagger in your cap that day, 
lest he knock that about yours. 

Fist. Art thou his friend ? 

King. And his kinsman too. 

Fist. Thejico for thee, then ! 

King. I thank you : God be with you ! 

Fist. My name is Pistol call'd. {Exit. 

King. It sorts well with your fierceness. 

Enter Fluellen and Gower, severally. 

Gow. Captain Fluellen ! 

Flu. So ! in the name of Cheshu Christ, speak lower. It 
is the greatest admiration 6 in the universal 'orld, when the 
true and auncient prerogatifs and laws of the wars is not 
kept : if you would take the pains but to examine the wars of 
Pompey the Great, you shall find, I warrant you, that there 
is no tiddle-taddle nor pibble-pabble in Pompey's camp ; I 

4 He calls himself a Welshman because he was in fact born at Mon- 
mouth in Wales. Hence his surname, Harry of Monmouth. 

5 Saint David is the patron saint of Wales, and of course his day stands 
high in the Welsh calendar ; a national holiday. 

6 Admiration, as usual, in the Latin sense of wonder* 



SCENE I. KING HENRY THE FIFTH. I IJ 

warrant you, you shall find the ceremonies of the wars, and 
the cares of it, and the forms of it, and the sobriety of it, and 
the modesty of it, to be otherwise. 

Gozv. Why, the enemy is loud ; you heard him all night. 

Flu. If the enemy is an ass, and a fool, and a prating cox- 
comb, is it meet, think you, that we should also, look you, be 
an ass, and a fool, and a prating coxcomb, — in your own con- 
science, now? 

Gow. I will speak lower. 

Flu. I pray you, and peseech you, that you will. 

\_Exeunt Gower and Fluellen. 

King. Though it appear a little out of fashion, 
There is much care and valour in this Welshman. 

Enter Bates, Court, and Williams. 

Court. Brother John Bates, is not that the morning which 
breaks yonder ! 

Bates. I think it be : but we have no great cause to desire 
the approach of day. 

Will. We see yonder the beginning of the day, but I 
think we shall never see the end of it. — Who goes there ? 

King. A friend. 

Will. Under what captain serve you? 

King. Under Sir Thomas Erpingham. 

Will. A good old commander and a most kind gentleman : 
I pray you, what thinks he of our estate? 7 

King. Even as men wreck'd upon a sand, that look to be 
wash'd off the next tide. 

Bates. He hath not told his thought to the King? 

King. No ; nor it is not meet he should. For, though I 

speak it to you, I think the King is but a man, as I am : the 

« 
7 Estate and state were used indiscriminately. 



Il8 KING HENRY THE FIFTH. ACT IV. 

violet smells to him as it doth to me ; the element 8 shows to 
him as it doth to me ; all his senses have but human condi- 
tions : his ceremonies laid by, in his nakedness he appears but 
a man ; and though his affections are higher mounted than 
ours, yet, when they stoop, they stoop with the like wing. 9 
Therefore, when he sees reason of fears, as we do, his fears, 
out of doubt, be of the same relish as ours are : yet, in reason, 
no man should possess him with any appearance of fear, lest 
he, by showing it, should dishearten his army. 

Bates. He may show what outward courage he will ; but 
I believe, as cold a night as 'tis, he could wish himself in 
Thames up to the neck : and so I would he were, and I by 
him, at all adventures, so we were quit here. 

King. By my troth, I will speak my conscience of the 
King : I think he would not wish himself any where but 
where he is. 

Bates. Then I would he were here alone ; so should he be 
sure to be ransomed, and a many poor men's lives saved. 

King. I dare say you love him not so ill, to wish him 
here alone, howsoever you speak this, to feel other men's 
minds : methinks I could not die any where so contented as 
in the King's company ; his cause being just, and his quarrel 
honourable. 

Will. That's more than we know. 

Court Ay, or more than we should seek after; for we 
know enough, if we know we are the King's subjects : if his 

8 The element is the sky. Repeatedly so. See Twelfth Night, page 31, 
note 5. 

9 An allusion to falconry. When a hawk, after soaring or mounting 
aloft, took his flight downwards, he was said to stoop : especially used of the 
plunge or souse he made upon the prey. — "Higher mounted" is soaring 
to a higher pitch ; another instance of the confusion of active and passive 
forms. 



SCENE I. KING HENRY THE FIFTH. I ig 

cause be wrong, our obedience to the King wipes the crime 
of it out of us. 

Will. But, if the cause be not good, the King himself hath 
a heavy reckoning to make, when all those legs and arms and 
heads, chopped off in battle, shall join together at the 
latter day, and cry all, We died at such a place ; some 
swearing ; some crying for a surgeon ; some, upon their wives 
left poor behind them ; some, upon the debts they owe ; 
some, upon their children rawly left. 10 I am afeard there are 
few die well that die in battle ; for how can they charitably 
dispose of any thing, when blood is their argument ? u Now, 
if these men do not die well, it will be a black matter for the 
King that led them to it ; whom to disobey were against all 
proportion of subjection. 

King. So, if a son, that is by his father sent about mer- 
chandise, do sinfully miscarry upon the sea, the imputation 
of his wickedness, by your rule, should be imposed upon his 
father that sent him : or, if a servant, under his master's com- 
mand transporting a sum of money, be assailed by robbers, 
and die in many irreconciled iniquities, 12 you may call the 
business of the master the author of the servant's damnation. 
But this is not so : the King is not bound to answer the 
particular endings of his soldiers, the father of his son, nor the 
master of his servant ; for they purpose not their death, when 
they purpose their services. Besides, there is no king, be his 

10 Their children left young and helpless; in a raw ox green age. 

11 Argument, in Shakespeare, is theme, subject, purpose, any matter in 
thought, or any business in hand. — "Charitably dispose" alludes to the 
old doctrine that a Christian's last hours should be spent in making such 
provision as he can for the poor and needy and suffering human brethren 
whom he is leaving behind. 

12 The language is slightly elliptical : iniquities for which he has not 
made his peace with Heaven by repentance and restitution. 



120 KING HENRY THE FIFTH. ACT IV. 

cause never so spotless, if it come to the arbitrement of 
swords, can try it out with all unspotted soldiers : some per- 
adventure have on them the guilt of premeditated and con- 
trived murder ; some, of beguiling virgins with the broken 
seals of perjury ; 13 some, making the wars their bulwark, that 
have before gored the gentle bosom of peace with pillage and 
robbery. Now, if these men have defeated the law and out- 
run native punishment, 14 though they can outstrip men, they 
have no wings to fly from God : war is His beadle, war is His 
vengeance ; so that here men are punish'd for before-breach 
of the King's laws in now the King's quarrel : where they 
feared the death, they have borne life away ; and where they 
would be safe, they perish : then, if they die unprovided, no 
more is the King guilty of their damnation, than he was before 
guilty of those impieties for the which they are now visited. 
Every subject's duty is the King's ; but every subject's soul is 
his own. Therefore should every soldier in the wars do as 
every sick man in his bed, — wash every mote out of his con- 
science : and, dying so, death is to him advantage ; "or, not 
dying, the time was blessedly lost wherein such preparation 
was gained : and, in him that escapes, it were not sin to 
think that, making God so free an offer, He let them outlive 
that day to see His greatness, and to teach others how they 
should prepare. 

Will. Tis certain, every man that dies ill, the ill is upon 
his own head ; the King is not to answer it. 

Bates. I do not desire he should answer for me ; and yet 
I determine to fight lustily for him. 

13 " The broken seals of perjury " are the seals or vows broken by 
perjury. 

14 " Native punishment " probably means punishment at home, or the 
punishment ordained in or by their native land. 



SCENE I. 



KING HENRY THE FIFTH. 121 



King. I myself heard the King say he would not be 
ransom'd. 

Will. Ay, he said so, to make us fight cheerfully : but, 
when our throats are cut, he may be ransom'd, and we ne'er 
the wiser. 

King. If I live to see it, I will never trust his word after. 

Will. 'Mass, you'll pay 15 him then ! That's a perilous 
shot out of an elder-gun, that a poor and a private displeas- 
ure can do against a monarch ! you may as well go about to 
turn the Sun to ice with fanning in his face with a peacock's 
feather. You'll never trust his word after ! come, 'tis a 
foolish saying. 

King. Your reproof is something too round : 16 I should 
be angry with you, if the time were convenient. 

Will. Let it be a quarrel between us, if you live. 

King. I embrace it. 

Will. How shall I know thee again ? 

King. Give me any gage of thine, and I will wear it in 
my bonnet : n then, if ever thou darest acknowledge it, I will 
make it my quarrel. 

Will. Here's my glove : give me another of thine. 

King. There. 

Will. This will I also wear in my cap : if ever thou come 
to me and say, after to-morrow, This is my glove, by this 
hand, I will take thee a box on the ear. 

King. If ever I live to see it, I will challenge it. 
Will. Thou darest as well be hang'd. 

15 inhere means bring him to account, or requite his act. —An elder-gun. 
is a popgun ; so called because made by punching the pith out of a piece of 
elder. 

16 Round is plain-spoken, unceremonious, blunt. Often so. 

17 Bonnet was the common name of a man's head-covering. — Gage is 
pledge, that which proves an engagement. 



122 KING HENRY THE FIFTH. ACT IV. 

King. Well, I will do it, though I take thee in the King's 
company. 

Will. Keep thy word : fare thee well. 

Bates. Be friends, you English fools, be friends : we have 
French quarrels enough, if you could tell how to reckon. 

King. Indeed, the French may lay twenty French crowns 
to one, they will beat us ; for they bear them on their shoul- 
ders : but it is no English treason to cut French crowns ; 
and to-morrow the King himself will be a clipper. 18 — 

\Exeunt Soldiers. 
Upon the King ! let us our lives, our souls, 
Our debts, our careful wives, 19 our children, and 
Our sins, lay on the King ! We must bear all. 
O hard condition ! twin-born with greatness, 
Subject to th' breath of every fool, whose sense 
No more can feel but his own wringing ! 20 
What infinite heart's-ease must kings neglect, 
That private men enjoy ! 

And what have kings, that privates have not too 
Save ceremony, — save general ceremony? — 
And what art thou, thou idol ceremony ? 
What kind of god art thou, that suffer'st more 
Of mortal griefs than do thy worshippers ? 
O ceremony, show me but thy worth ! 

18 Alluding to the old doctrine which made it treason to mar or deface 
the king's image on the coin. There is a quibble also on crowns ; the King 
probably meaning that there are twenty Frenchmen to one Englishman. 

19 " Our careful wives " probably means " the wives whom we care, or 
are careful, for." Another instance of transferred epithet. See page ill, 
note i. 

20 Who has no sense or feeling for any pains or troubles but his own : 
without sympathy; uncompassionate ; and therefore selfish. To wring and 
to writhe have the same meaning. So in Cymbeline, iii. 6 : " He wrings at 
some distress." 



SCENE I. KING HENRY THE FIFTH. 123 

What are thy rents ? what are thy comings-in ? 

What is thy soul of adoration? -21 

Art thou aught else but place, degree, and form, 

Creating awe and fear in other men ? 

Wherein thou art less happy being fear'd 

Than they in fearing. 

What drink 'st thou oft, instead of homage sweet, 

But poison'd flattery? O, be sick, great greatness, 

And bid thy ceremony give thee cure ! 

Think 'st thou the fiery fever will go out 

With titles blown from adulation? 2 ' 2 

Will it give place to flexure and low bending ? 

Canst thou, when thou command'st the beggar's knee, 

Command the health of it ? No, thou proud dream, 

That play'st so subtly with a king's repose : 

I am a king that find thee ; and I know 

'Tis not the balm, 23 the sceptre, and the ball, 

The sword, the mace, the crown imperial, 

The intertissued robe of gold and pearl, 

The farced 24 title running 'fore the king, 

The throne he sits on, nor the tide of pomp 

That beats upon the high shore of this world, — 

No, not all these, thrice-gorgeous ceremony, 



21 Such was the idiom of the time ; the sense being, " What is the life, 
virtue, or essence of thy adoration ? " that is, the adoration paid to thee. 
The objective genitive, as it is called, where present usage admits only the 
subjective. 

22 That is, titles blown up, or made big and pretentious with the breath 
of flattery. 

23 The balm was the oil used in anointing a king at his coronation.— 
The ball was the symbol of majesty ; the mace, of authority. 

24 Farced is stuffed. The tumid, puffy titles with which a king's name 
is introduced. 



124 KING HENRY THE FIFTH. ACT IV. 

Not all these, laid in bed majestical, 

Can sleep so soundly as the wretched slave, 

Who, with a body fill'd and vacant mind, 

Gets him to rest, cramm'd with distressful 25 bread; 

Never sees horrid night, the child of Hell ; 

But, like a lacquey, from the rise to set, 

Sweats in the eye of Phcebus, and all night 

Sleeps in Elysium ; next day, after dawn, 

Doth rise, and help Hyperion to his horse' ; 26 

And follows so the ever-running year, 

With profitable labour, to his grave : 

And, but for ceremony, such a wretch, 

Winding up days with toil and nights with sleep, 

Had the fore-hand and vantage of a king. 

The slave, a member of the country's peace, 

Enjoys it ; but in gross brain little wots 

What watch the king keeps to maintain the peace, 

Whose hours the peasant best advantages. 27 

Enter Erpingham. 

Erp. My lord, your nobles, jealous of your absence, 
Seek through your camp to find you. 

King. Good old knight, 

Collect them all together at my tent : 
I'll be before thee. 

25 Distressful, perhaps, in a twofold sense : the poor man is distressed to 
get it, and distressed after eating it. 

26 Horse for horses, just as, elsewhere, corpse for corpses, and house' for 
houses : for the old Sun-god, whether called Hyperion, Apollo, or Phcebus, 
was never a one-horse god; nor could his grand chariot be drawn by a 
one-horse team ; and Shakespeare knew this right well. 

27 In the old writers, the predicate verb often agrees in number with the 
nearest substantive, and not with the proper subject. So here, hours is the 
subject of advantages, which is a transitive verb, peasant being its object 



SCENE I. KING HENRY THE FIFTH. 125 

Erp. I shall do't, my lord. [Exit. 

King. O God of battles ! steel my soldiers' hearts ; 
Possess them not with fear ; take from them now 
The sense of reckoning, if th' opposed numbers 
Pluck their hearts from them ! Not to-day, O Lord, 
O, not to-day, think not upon the fault 
My father made in compassing the crown ! 
I Richard's body have interred new ; 
And on it have bestow'd more contrite tears 
Than from it issued forced drops of blood : 
Five hundred poor I have in yearly pay, 
Who twice a- day their wither 'd hands hold up 
Toward Heaven, to pardon blood ; and I have built 
Two chantries, 28 where the sad and solemn priests 
Sing still for Richard's soul. More will I do ; 
Though all that I can do is nothing worth, 
Since that my penitence comes after all, 
Imploring pardon. 29 

Enter Gloster. 

Glo. My liege ! 

Kifig. My brother Gloster's voice ? Ay ; 

I know thy errand, I will go with thee : 
The day, my friends, and all things stay for me. [Exeunt. 

28 One of these was for Carthusian monks, and was called Bethlehem ; the 
other was for religious men and women of the order of St. Bridget, and was 
named Sion. They were on opposite sides* of the Thames, and adjoined 
the royal manor of Sheen. A chantry is, properly, a place where chanting 
is practised ; or a chapel for choral service. 

20 That is, " Since, after all that I have done or can do in works of piety 
and charity, nothing but true penitence and earnest prayer for pardon will 
avail to procure a remission of my sins." 



126 KING HENRY THE FIFTH. ACT IV. 

Scene II. — The French Camp. 

Enter the Dauphin, Orleans, Rambures, and others. 

Orl. The Sun doth gild our armour ; up, my lords ! 

Dau. Montez a cheval 7 — My horse ! varlet, laquais / ha ! 

Orl. O brave spirit ! 

Dau. Via f l — les eaux et le terre, — 

Orl. Rien puis? Vair et lefeu, — 

Dau. del! cousin Orleans. — 

Enter Constable. 

Now, my Lord Constable ! 

Con. Hark, how our steeds for present service neigh ! 

Dau. Mount them, and make incision in their hides, 
That their hot blood may spin in English eyes, 
And dout them 2 with superfluous courage, ha ! 

Ram. What, will you have them weep our horses' blood ? 
How shall we, then, behold their natural tears ? 

Enter a Messenger. 

Mess. The English are embattled, you French peers. 

Con. To horse, you gallant princes ! straight to horse ! 
Do but behold yond poor and starved band, 
And your fair show shall suck away their souls, 
Leaving them but the shales 3 and husks of men. 
There is not work enough for all our hands ; 
Scarce blood enough in all their sickly veins 
To give each naked curtle-axe a stain, 

1 An old exclamation of encouragement ; on! away / Italian. 

2 To dout is to do out, to put out ; them referring to eyes. 

3 Shale is an old form of shell ' ; from the Saxon schale. 



SCENE IL KING HENRY THE FIFTH. 12? 

That our French gallants shall to-day draw out, 

And sheathe for lack of sport : let us but blow on them, 

The vapour of our valour will o'erturn them. 

'Tis positive 'gainst all exceptions, lords, 

That our superfluous lacqueys and our peasants — 

Who in unnecessary action swarm 

About our squares of battle — were enough 

To purge this field of such a hilding foe ; 4 

Though we upon this mountain's basis by 

Took stand for idle speculation, 5 — 

But that our honours must not. What's to say? 

A very little little let us do, 

And all is done. Then let the trumpet sound 

The tucket-sonance and the note to mount : 6 

For our approach shall so much dare the field, 

That England shall couch down in fear, and yield. 

Enter Grandpre. 

Grand. Why do you stay so long, my lords of France ? 
Yond island carrions, desperate of their bones, 
Ill-favour'dly become the morning field : 
Their ragged curtains 7 poorly are let loose, 
And our air shakes them passing scornfully ; 
Big Mars seems bankrupt in their beggar'd host, 

4 A hilding foe is a paltry, cowardly, base foe. 

5 Speculat'i.071, here, is simply beholding, or looking on. 

6 The tucket-sonance, or sounding of the tucket, was a flourish on a trum- 
pet as a signal. — The Constable's spirits are dancing in merry scorn; the 
note to mount and dare the field being terms fitter for a sporting-excursion 
than for a war-tussle. To dare the field is a phrase in falconry. Birds are 
dared when, by the falcon in the air, they are terrified from rising, so as to 
be sometimes taken by the hand. 

7 Their ragged curtains are their colours. 



128 KING HENRY THE FIFTH. ACT IV. 

And faintly through a rusty beaver 8 peeps : 
The horsemen sit like fixed candlesticks, 9 
With torch-staves in their hand ; and their poor jades 
Lob down their heads, dropping the hides and hips, 
The gum down-roping from their pale-dead eyes ; 
And in their pall'd dull mouths the gimmal-bit 10 
Lies foul with chew'd grass, still and motionless : 
And their executors, the knavish crows, 
Fly o'er them, all impatient for their hour. 
Description cannot suit itself in words 
To demonstrate the life of such a battle 
In life so lifeless as it shows itself. 

Con. They've said their prayers, and they stay for death. 

Dau. Shall we go send them dinners and fresh suits, 
And give their fasting horses provender, 
And after fight with them ? 

Con. I stay but for my guidon : to the field ! 
I will the banner from a trumpet 11 take, 
And use it for my haste. Come, come, away ! 
The Sun is high, and we outwear the day. \_Exeunt. 

8 The beaver was the part of the helmet that came down over the face. 

9 Ancient candlesticks were often in the form of human figures holding 
the socket, for the lights, in their extended hands. 

10 The gimmal-bit was probably a bit in which two parts or links were 
united, as in the gimmal ring, so called because they were double-linked ; 
from gemellus, Lat. 

11 Trumpet for trumpeter ; a frequent usage. — Guidon is an old word for 
standard, ensign, or banner, or the bearer of it. So Holinshed : " They 
thought themselves so sure of victorie, that diverse of the noblemen made 
such hast toward the battell, that they left manie of their servants and men 
of war re behind them, and some of them would not once state for their 
standards ; as amongst other the duke of Brabant, when his standard was 
not come, caused a banner to be taken frotn a trumpet, and fastened to a 
speare, the which he commanded to be borne before him, insteed of his 
standard." 



SCENE III. KING HENRY THE FIFTH. 1 29 



Scene III. — The English Camp. 

Enter the English Host; Gloster, Bedford, Exeter, Salis- 
bury, and Westmoreland. 

Glo. Where is the King? 

Bed. The King himself is rode to view their battle. 

West. Of fighting-men they have full three-score thou- 
sand. 

Exe. There's five to one ; besides, they all are fresh. 

Sal. God's arm strike with us ! 'tis a fearful odds. 
God b' wi' you, princes all; I'll to my charge : 
If we no more meet till we meet in Heaven, 
Then, joyfully, my noble Lord of Bedford, 
My dear Lord Gloster, and my good Lord Exeter, 
And my kind kinsman, 1 warriors all, adieu ! 

Bed. Farewell, good Salisbury ; and good luck go with 
thee ! 

Exe. Farewell, kind lord ; fight valiantly to-day : 
And yet I do thee wrong to mind thee of it, 
For thou art framed of the firm truth of valour. 

{Exit Salisbury. 

Bed. He is as full of valour as of kindness ; 

Princely in both. 

Enter King Henry. 

West. O, that we now had here 

But one ten thousand of those men in England 
That do no work to-day ! 

King. What's he that wishes so ? 

1 The kind kinsman here addressed is Westmoreland. The Earl of 
Salisbury was Thomas Montacute : he was in fact not related to West- 
moreland ; but their families were connected by marriage. 



I30 KING HENRY THE FIFTH. ACT IV. 

My cousin Westmoreland ? — No, my fair cousin : 2 

If we are mark'd to die, we are enough 

To do our country loss ; and if to live, 

The fewer men, the greater share of honour. 

God's will ! I pray thee, wish not one man more. 

By Jove, I am not covetous for gold ; 

Nor care I who doth feed upon my cost ; 

It yearns me not if men my garments wear ; 

Such outward things dwell not in my desires : 

But if it be a sin to covet honour, 

I am the most offending soul alive. 

No, faith, my coz, wish not a man from England : 

God's peace ! I would not lose so great an honour 

As one man more, methinks, would share from me, 

For the best hope I have. O, do not wish one more ! 

Rather proclaim it, Westmoreland, through my host, 

That he which hath no stomach to this fight, 

Let him depart ; his passport shall be made, 

And crowns for convoy put into his purse : 

We would not live in that man's company 

That fears his fellowship to die with us. 

This day is call'd the feast of Crispian : 3 

2 Westmoreland's first wife was aunt to the King by his grandfather's 
side ; she being one of several children of John of Ghent by Catharine 
Swynford ; all born out of wedlock, but afterwards legitimated. They took 
the name of Beaufort, from Beaufort Castle, in France, where they were 
born. 

3 The battle of Agincourt was fought the 25th of October, 1415. The 
saints who gave name to the day were Crispin and Crispianus, brothers, 
born at Rome, from whence they travelled to Soissons, in France, about the 
year 303, to propagate Christianity, but, that they might not be chargeable 
to others for their maintenance, they exercised the trade of shoemakers : the 
governor of the town, discovering them to be Christians, ordered them to 
be beheaded. Hence they have become the patron saints of shoemakers. 



SCENE III. KING HENRY THE FIFTH. 13: 

He that outlives this day, and comes safe home, 

Will stand a-tip-toe when this day is named, 

And rouse him at the name of Crispian. 

He that shall live this day, and see old age, 

Will yearly on the vigil 4 feast his neighbours, 

And say, To-morrow is Saint Crispian : 

Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars, 

And say, These wounds I had on Crispin's day. 

Old men forget ; yet all shall be forgot, 

But he'll remember with advantages 

What feats he did that day : then shall our names, 

Familiar in their mouths as household words, — 

Harry the King, Bedford and Exeter, 

Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloster, — 

Be in their flowing cups freshly remember'd. 

This story shall the good man teach his son ; 

And Crispin Crispian shall ne'er go by, 

From this day to the ending of the world, 

But we in it shall be remembered, 

We few, we happy few, we band of brothers ; 

For he to-day that sheds his blood with me 

Shall be my brother ; be he ne'er so vile, 

This day shall gentle his condition : 5 

And gentlemen in England now a-bed 

Shall think themselves accursed they were not here ; 

And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks 

That fought with us upon Saint Crispin's day. 



4 The vigil of a holy day was the watch that was kept the night before. 
Something of the old custom survives in the celebration of Christmas eve. 

5 That is, shall make him a gentleman. King Henry V. inhibited any 
person, but such as had a right by inheritance or grant, from bearing coats- 
of-arms, except those who fought with him at the battle of Agincourt. 



132 KING HENRY THE FIFTH. ACT IV. 

Re-enter Salisbury. 

Sal. My sovereign lord, bestow yourself with speed : 
The French are bravely 6 in their battles set, 
And will with all expedience 7 charge on us. 

King. All things are ready, if our minds be so. 

West. Perish the man whose mind is backward now ! 

King. Thou dost not wish more help from England, coz ? 

West. God's will ! my liege, would you and I alone, 
Without more help, might fight this battle out ! 

King. Why, now thou hast unwish'd five thousand men ; 8 
Which likes me better than to wish us one. — 
You know your places : God be with you all ! 

Tucket. Enter Montjoy. 

Mont. Once more I come to know of thee, King Harry, 
If for thy ransom thou wilt now compound, 
Before thy most assured overthrow ; 
For certainly thou art so near the gulf, 
Thou needs must be englutted. Besides, in mercy, 
The Constable desires thee thou wilt mind 
Thy followers of repentance ; that their souls 
May make a peaceful and a sweet retire 
From off these fields, where, wretches, their poor bodies 
Must lie and fester. 

King. Who hath sent thee now? 

6 Bravely is in a braving manner ; defiantly. 

7 Expedience for expedition, speed. The usage was common. 

8 " By wishing only thyself and me, thou hast wished five thousand men 
away." The Poet, inattentive to numbers, ^wXsfive thousand, but in the last 
scene the French are said to be full three-score thousand, which Exeter 
declares to be five to one. The numbers of the English are variously 
stated ; Holinshed makes them fifteen thousand, others but nine thousand. 



SCENE in. KING HENRY THE FIFTH. 1 33 

Mont. The Constable of France. 

King. I pray thee, bear my former answer back : 
Bid them achieve me, and then sell my bones. 
Good God ! why should they mock poor fellows thus ? 
The man that once did sell the lion's skin 
While the beast lived, was kill'd with hunting him. 
A many of our bodies shall no doubt 
Find native graves ; upon the which, I trust, 
Shall witness live in brass 9 of this day's work : 
And those that leave their valiant bones in France, 
Dying like men, though buried in your dunghills, 
They shall be famed ; for there the Sun shall greet them, 
And draw their honours reeking up to heaven ; 
Leaving their earthly parts to choke your clime, 
The smell whereof shall breed a plague in France. 
Mark, then, abounding valour in our English ; 
That, being dead, like to the bullets grazing, 
Break out into a second course of mischief, 
Killing in relapse of mortality. 10 
Let me speak proudly : Tell the Constable 
We are but warriors for the working- day ; 
Our gayness and our gilt are all besmirch'd 
With rainy marching in the painful field ; 
There" s not a piece of feather in our host, — 
Good argument, I hope, we will not fly, — 
And time hath worn us into slovenry : 



9 Alluding to the plates of brass formerly let into tombstones. 

10 "Relapse of mortality" is simply the falling-back or returning of the 
mortal body to its original dust. — This high strain must be set down, I 
think, among the Poet's instances of overboldness. Certainly, nothing but 
his prodigious momentum of thought and poetry could carry us fairly 
through such a strain ; hardly even that. 



1 34 KING HENRY THE FIFTH. ACT IV. 

But by the Mass our hearts are in the trim ; 
And my poor soldiers tell me, yet ere night 
They'll be in fresher robes ; for they will pluck 
The gay new coats o'er the French soldiers' heads, 
And turn them out of service. If they do this, — 
As, if God please, they shall, — my ransom then 
Will soon be levied. Herald, save thy labour ; 
Come thou no more for ransom, gentle herald : 
They shall have none, I swear, but these my joints ; 
Which if they have as I will leave 'em them, 
Shall yield them little, tell the Constable. 

Mont. I shall, King Harry. And so fare thee well : 
Thou never shall hear herald any more. [Exit. 

King. I fear thou'lt once more come again for ransom. 

Enter the Duke of York. 11 

York. My lord, most humbly on my knee I beg 
The leading of the vaward. 12 

King. Take it, brave York. — Now, soldiers, march 
away : — 
And how Thou pleasest, God, dispose the day ! [Exeunt. 

11 This Edward Duke of York was the son of Edmund of Langley, the 
Duke of York, who was the fourth son of King Edward III. He is the man 
who figures as Aumerle in King Richard the Second. 

12 The vaward is the vanguard. So in Holinshed : " He appointed a 
vaward, of the which he made capteine Edward duke of York, who of an 
haultie courage had desired that office." 



SCENE IV. KING HENRY THE FIFTH. 135 



Scene IV. — The Field of Battle. 

Alarums : excursions. Enter French Soldier, Pistol, and 
the Boy. 

Fist. Yield, cur ! 

Fr. Sol. Je pense que vous etes le gentilhojmne de bonne 
qualite. 

Fist. Quality ! Callino, castore me ! 1 art thou a gentle- 
man? what is thy name? discuss. 

Fr. Sol. O Seigneur Dieu / 

Fist. O, Signieur Dew should be a gentleman : 
Perpend my words, O Signieur Dew, and mark : 
O Signieur Dew, thou diest on point .of fox, 2 
Except, O signieur, thou do give to me 
Egregious ransom. 

Fr. Sol. O prenez misericorde ! ay ez pi tie de moil 

Fist. Moy 3 shall not serve ; I will have forty moys ; 
Or I will fetch thy rim 4 out at thy throat 



1 These words, it seems, were the burden of an old song. Boswell found 
the notes in Playford's Musical Companion. He says the words mean " Lit- 
tle girl of my heart, for ever and ever " ; and adds, " They have, it is true, 
no great connection with the poor Frenchman's supplications, nor were they 
meant to have any. Pistol, instead of attending to him, contemptuously 
hums a tune." 

2 Fox was an old fancy-term for sword. "The name," says Staunton, 
"was given from the circumstance that Andrea Ferrara, and, since his time, 
other foreign sword-cutlers, adopted a fox as the blade-mark of their weap- 
ons. Swords, with a running fox rudely engraved on the blades, are still 
occasionally to be met with in the old curiosity-shops of London." 

3 Moy or moyos was a measure of corn ; in French muy or muid, Latin 
modius, a bushel. It appears that twenty-seven moys were equal to at least 
two tons. 

4 Pistol is not very scrupulous in his language : he uses rim for the intes- 
tines generally. Bishop Wilkins defines it "the membrane of the belly"; 



I36 KING HENRY THE FIFTH. ACT IV. 

In drops of crimson blood. 

Fr. Sol. Est-il impossible d'echapper la force de ton bras ? 

Fist. Brass, cur ! 
Thou damned and luxurious mountain-goat, 
Offer'st me brass? 

Fr. Sol. O, pardonnez-moi / 

Fist. Say'st thou me so? is that a ton of moys? — 
Come hither, boy : ask me this slave in French 
What is his name. 

Boy. Ecoutez : comment etes-vous appele ? 

Fr. Sol. Monsieur le Fer. 

Boy. He says his name is Master Fer. 

Fist. Master Fer ! I'll fer him, and firk 5 him, and ferret 
him : discuss the same in French unto him. 

Boy. I do not know the French for fer, and ferret, and 
firk. 

Fist. Bid him prepare ; for I will cut his throat. 

Fr. Sol. Que dit-il, monsieur ? 

Boy. // me commande de vous dire que vous faites vous 
prel ; car ce soldat ici est dispose tout a cette heure de couper 
votre gorge. 

Pist. Oui, couper la gorge, par mafoi, 
Peasant, unless thou give me crowns, brave crowns ; 
Or mangled shalt thou be by this my sword. 

Fr. Sol. 0,jevous supplie,pour P amour de Dieu, me par- 
donner! Je suis gentilhomme de bonne maison ; gardez ma 
vie, etje vous donnerai deux cents ecus. 

Florio makes it the omentum, " a fat pannicle, caule, sewet, rim, or kell 
wherein the bowels are lapt." 

5 To firk is to beat or scourge : to yerk and to jerk have the same im- 
port. — To ferret is of kindred meaning, the ferret being a very fierce and 
spiteful animal. So in the old play of King Leir : " I'll ferret you ere night 
for that word." 



SCENE IV. KING HENRY THE FIFTH. 1 37 

Pist. What are his words ? 

Boy. He prays you to save his life : he is a gentleman of 
a good House ; and for his ransom he will give you two hun- 
dred crowns. 

Pist. Tell him my fury shall abate, and I 
The crowns will take. 

Fr. Sol. Petit monsieur, que dit-il ? 

Boy. Eficore qu'il est contre son jurement de pardonner 
aucun prisonnier, nea?imoins, pour les ecus que vous Pavez 
promt's, il est content de vous donner la liberie, le franchise- 
ment. 

Fr. Sol. Sur mes genoux je vous donne mille remercimens ; 
etje m'cstime heureux que je suis tombe entre les mains d^un 
chevalier, je pense, le plus brave, vaillant, et tres- distingue 
seigneur d' Angle terre. 

Pist. Expound unto me, boy. 

Boy. He gives you, upon his knees, a thousand thanks ; 
and he esteems himself happy that he hath fallen into the 
hands of one, as he thinks, the most brave, valorous, and 
thrice-worthy signieur of England. 

Pist. As I suck blood, I will some mercy show. — 
Follow me, cur. \_Exit 

Boy. Suivez-vous le grand capitaine. \_Exit French Sol- 
dier.] — I did never know so full a voice issue from so empty 
a heart : but the saying is true, The empty vessel makes the 
greatest sound. Bardolph and Nym had ten times more 
valour than this roaring Devil i' the old play, 6 that every one 

6 The Devil was a prominent personage in the old Miracle-plays and 
Moral-plays. He was as turbulent, boisterous, and vainglorious as Pistol. 
Ho, ho! and Ah, ha! were among his stereotyped exclamations or roarings. 
The Vice used to belabour him with various indignities, and, among them, 
threaten to pare his nails with the dagger of lath ; the Devil choosing to 
keep his claws long and sharp. See Twelfth Night, page 119, note 17. 



I38 KING HENRY THE FIFTH. ACT IV. 

may pare his nails with a wooden dagger ; and they are both 
hang'd ; and so would this be, if he durst steal any thing 
adventurously. I must stay with the lacqueys, with the lug- 
gage of our camp : the French might have a good prey of 
us, if they knew of it ; for there is none to guard it but boys. 

[Exit: 

Scene V. — Another Part of the Field of Battle. 

Alarums. Enter the Constable, Orleans, Bourbon, the 
Dauphin, Rambures, and others. 

Con. O diable ! 

Orl. O Seigneur/ le jour est perdu, tout est perdu! 

Dau. Mort de ma vie! 1 all is confounded, all ! 
Reproach, reproach and everlasting shame 
Sit mocking in our plumes. O mechante fortune ! — 
Do not run away. \_A short alarum. 

Con. Why, all our ranks are broke. 

Dau. O perdurable shame ! — let's stab ourselves. 
Be these the wretches that we play'd at dice? 

Orl. Is this the King we sent to for his ransom ? 

Bour. Shame, and eternal shame, nothing but shame ! 
Let's die in honour : once more back again. 

Con. Disorder, that hath spoil'd us, friend us now ! 
Let us on heaps 2 go offer up our lives. 

1 Ludicrous as these introductory scraps of French appear, so instantly 
followed by good, nervous mother-English, yet they are judicious, and pro- 
duce the impression Shakespeare intended : a sudden feeling struck at once 
on the ears, as well as the eyes, of the audience, that " here come the French, 
the baffled French braggards ! " And this will appear the more judicious, 
when we reflect on the scanty apparatus of distinguishing dresses in Shake- 
speare's tiring-room. — Coleridge. 

2 On heaps is in crowds. Repeatedly so. See King Richard the Third, 
page 91, note 4. 






SCENE VI. KING HENRY THE FIFTH. 139 

Orl. We are enough, yet living in the field, 
To smother up the English in our throngs, 
If any order might be thought upon. 

Bour. The Devil take order now ! I'll to the throng : 
Let life be short ; else shame will be too long. [Exeunt. 



Scene VI. — Another Part of the Field. 

Alarums. Enter King Henry and Forces, Exeter, and 
others. 

King. Well have we done, thrice-valiant countrymen : 
But all's not done j yet keep the French the field. 

Exe. The Duke of York commends him to your Majesty. 

King. Lives he, good uncle ? thrice within this hour 
I saw him down ; thrice up again, and fighting ; 
From helmet to the spur all blood he was. 

Exe. In which array, brave soldier, doth he lie, 
Larding the plain ; 1 and by his bloody side, 
Yoke-fellow to his honour-owing wounds, 
The noble Earl of Suffolk also lies. 
Suffolk first died : and York, all haggled over, 
Comes to him, where in gore he lay insteep'd, 
And takes him by the beard ; kisses the gashes 
That bloodily did yawn upon his face ; 
And cries aloud, Tarry, dear cousin Suffolk / 
My soul shall keep thine company to Heaven; 
Tarry, sweet soul, for mine, then fly a-breast; 



1 That is, enriching the plain with his blood. In i Henry the Fourth, ii. 
2, Falstaff is said to do the same thing with his sweat : " Fat Falstaff sweats 
to death, and lards the lean earth as he walks along." 



I4O KING HENRY THE FIFTH. ACT IV. 

As in this glorious and well-foughten field 

We kept together in our chivalry / 

Upon these words, I came and cheer'd him up : 

He smiled me in the face, raught 2 me his hand, 

And, with a feeble gripe, says, Dear my lord, 

Commend my service to my sovereign. 

So did he turn, and over Suffolk's neck 

He threw his wounded arm, and kiss'd his lips ; 

And so, espoused to death, with blood he seal'd 

A testament of noble-ending love. 

The pretty and sweet manner of it forced 

Those waters from me which I would have stopp'd : 

But I had not so much of man in me, 

But 3 all my mother came into mine eyes, 

And gave me up to tears. 

King. I blame you not ; 

For, hearing this, I must perforce compound 
With mistful eyes, or they will issue too. [Alarum. 

But, hark ! what new alarum is this same ? — 
The French have reinforced their scattered men : 
Then every soldier kill his prisoner's ; 
Give the word through. [Exeunt. 

Scene VII. — Another Part of the Field. 
Alarums. Enter Fluellen and Gower. 

Flu. Kill the poys and the luggage ! 'tis expressly against 
the law of arms : 'tis as arrant a piece of knavery, mark you 
now, as can be offer'd ; in your conscience, now, is it not ? 

Gow. 'Tis certain there's not a boy left alive ; and the 

2 Raught is the old preterit of reach. 

8 But here is equivalent to but that. A frequent usage. 



SCENE VII. KING HENRY THE FIFTH. I4I 

cowardly rascals that ran from the battle ha' done this 
slaughter : besides, they have burned and carried away all 
that was in the King's tent ; wherefore the King, most wor- 
thily, hath caused every soldier to cut his prisoner's throat. 1 
O, 'tis a gallant king ! 

Flu. Ay, he was porn at Monmouth, Captain Gower. 
What call you the town's name where Alexander the Pig 
was porn ? 

Gow. Alexander the Great. 

Flu. Why, I pray you, is not pig great? the pig, or the 
great, or the mighty, or the huge, or the magnanimous, are 
all one reckonings, save the phrase is a little variations. 

Gow. I think Alexander the Great was born in Macedon : 
his father was called Philip of Macedon, as I take it. 

Flu. I think it is in Macedon where Alexander is porn. 
I tell you, captain, if you look in the maps of the 'orld, I 
warrant you shall find, in the comparisons between Macedon 
and Monmouth, that the situations, look you, is both alike. 
There is a river in Macedon ; and there is also moreover a 
river at Monmouth : it is called Wye at Monmouth ; but it 
is out of my prains what is the name of the other river : but 
'tis all one ; 'tis alike as my fingers is to my fingers, and 
there is salmons in both. If $*ou mark Alexander's life well, 
Harry of Monmouth's life is come after it indifferent well ; 2 



1 This incident is related in full by Holinshed. It appears afterwards, 
however, that the King, on finding that the danger was not so great as he at 
first thought, stopped the slaughter, and was able to save a great number. 
It is observable that the King gives as his reason for the order, that he 
expected another battle, and had not men enough to guard one army and 
fight another. Gower here assigns a different reason. Holinshed gives 
both reasons, and the Poet chose to put one in the King's mouth, the other 
in Gower's. 

2 " Indifferent well " is tolerably well. See Twelfth Night, p. 52, n. 23. 



142 KING HENRY THE FIFTH. ACT IV. 

for there is figures in all things. Alexander, — Got knows, 
and you know, — in his rages, and his furies, and his wraths, 
and his cholers, and his moods, and his displeasures, and 
his indignations, and also being a little intoxicates in his 
prains, did, in his ales and his angers, look you, kill his pest 
friend, Cleitus. 

Gow. Our King is not like him in that : he never kill'd 
any of his friends. 

Flu. It is not well done, mark you now, to take the tales 
out of my mouth, ere it is made and finished. I speak but 
in the figures and comparisons of it : As Alexander kill'd his 
friend Cleitus, being in his ales and his cups ; so also Harry 
Monmouth, being in his right wits and his goot judgments, 
turn'd away the fat knight with the great-pelly doublet; 3 
he was full of jests, and gipes, and knaveries, and mocks ; I 
have forgot his name. 

Gow. Sir John Falstaff. 

Flu. That is he. I'll tell you there is goot men porn at 
Monmouth. 

Gow. Here comes his Majesty. 

Alarum. Enter King Henry with a part of the English 
Forces ; Warwick, Glosfer, Exeter, and others. 

King. I was not angry since I came to France 
Until this instant. — Take a trumpet, herald ; 
Ride thou unto the horsemen on yond hill : 
If they will fight with us, bid them come down, 
Or void the field ; they do offend our sight : 

3 That is, "great-bellied doublet," which was the opposite of " thin-h&Wied 
doublet." Doublet was the name of a man's upper garment. " The 
doublets," says Staunton, " were made some without stuffing, — thin-bellied, 
— and some bombasted out." 






SCENE VII. KING HENRY THE FIFTH. 143 

If they'll do neither, we will come to them, 
And make them skirr away, 4 as swift as stones 
Enforced from the old Assyrian slings : 
Besides, we'll cut the throats of those we have ; 
And not a man of them that we shall take 
Shall taste our mercy. Go, and tell them so. 

Exe. Here comes the herald of the French, my liege. 

Glo. His eyes are humbler than they used to be. 

Enter Montjoy. 

King. How now ! what means this, herald ? know'st thou 
not 
That I have fined these bones of mine for ransom ? 
Comest thou again for ransom ? 

Mont. No, great King : 

I come to thee for charitable license 
That we may wander o'er this bloody field 
To look our dead, 5 and then to bury them ; 
To sort our nobles from our common men ; 
For many of our princes — woe the while ! — 
Lie drown'd and soak'd in mercenary blood : 
So do our vulgar drench their peasant limbs 
In blood of princes ; and the wounded steeds 
Fret fetlock deep in gore, and with wild rage 
Yerk out their armed heels at their dead masters, 
Killing them twice. O, give us leave, great King, 

4 Scour away; to run swiftly in various directions. It has the same 
meaning in Macbeth, v. 3, " Skirr the country round." 

5 The use of look as a transitive verb was not uncommon. The incident 
is thus related by Holinshed : " In the morning Montjoie and foure other 
heralds came to the king, to know the number of prisoners, and to desire 
buriall for the dead." 



144 KING HENRY THE FIFTH. ACT IV. 

To view the field in safety, and dispose 
Of their dead bodies ! 

King. I tell thee truly, herald, 

I know not if the day be ours or no ; 
For yet a many of your horsemen peer 
And gallop o'er the field. 

Mont. The day is yours. 

King. Praised be God, and not our strength, for it ! 
What is this castle call'd that stands hard by ? 

Mont. They call it Agincourt. 

King. Then call we this the field of Agincourt, 
Fought on the day of Crispin Crispianus. 

Flu. Your grandfather of famous memory, an't please 
your Majesty, and your great-uncle Edward the Plack Prince 
of Wales, as I have read in the chronicles, fought a most 
prave pattle here in France. 

King. They did, Fluellen. 

Flu. Your Majesty says very true : if your Majesty is 
remember'd of it, the Welshmen did goot service in a garden 
where leeks did grow, wearing leeks in their Monmouth caps ; 6 
which, your Majesty knows, to this hour is an honourable 
padge of the service ; and I do pelieve your Majesty takes no 
scorn to wear the leek upon Saint Tavy's day. 

King. I wear it for a memorable honour ; 
For I am Welsh, you know, good countryman. 

Flu. All the water in Wye cannot wash your Majesty's 
Welsh plood out of your pody, I can tell you that : Got pless 

6 Fuller, in his Worthies of Monmouthshire, says, " The best caps were 
formerly made at Monmouth, where the cappers' chapel doth still remain." 
He adds, " If at this day the phrase of wearing a Montnouth cap be taken in 
a bad acception, I hope the inhabitants of that town will endeavour to dis- 
prove the occasion." 



SCENE VII. KING HENRY THE FIFTH. 145 

it, and preserve it, as long as it pleases His Grace, and His 
Majesty too ! 

King. Thanks, good my countryman. 

Flu. By Cheshu, I am your Majesty's countryman, I care 
not who know it ; I will confess it to all the 'orld : I need 
not to be ashamed of your Majesty, praised be Got, so long 
as your Majesty is an honest man. 

King. God keep me so ! — Our heralds go with him : 
Bring me just notice of the numbers dead 
On both our parts. — Call yonder fellow hither. 

\_Points to Williams. Exeunt Heralds with Montjoy. 

Exe. Soldier, you must come to the King. 

King. Soldier, why wear'st thou that glove in thy cap ? 

Will. An't please your Majesty, 'tis the gage of one that 
I should fight withal, if he be alive. 

King. An Englishman? 

Will. An't please your Majesty, a rascal that swagger'd 
with me last night ; who if 'a live, and ever dare to challenge 
this glove, I have sworn to take him a box o' the ear : or, if I 
can see my glove in his cap, which he swore, as he was a sol- 
dier, he would wear if alive, I will strike it out soundly. 

King. What think you, Captain Fluellen ! is it fit this 
soldier keep his oath? 

Flu. He is a craven and a villain else, an't please your 
Majesty, in my conscience. 

King. It may be his enemy is a gentleman of great sort, 7 
quite from the answer of his degree. 

Flu. Though he be as goot a gentleman as the Tevil is, 
as Lucifer and Beelzebub himself, it is necessary, look your 



7 Great sort is high rank. A man of such rank is not bound to answer 
to the challenge from one of the soldier's low degree. 



I46 KING HENRY THE FIFTH. ACT IV. 

Grace, that he keep his vow and his oath : if he be perjured, 
see you now, his reputation is as arrant a villain and a Jack- 
sauce, 8 as ever his plack shoe trod upon Got's ground and His 
earth, in my conscience, la. 

King. Then keep thy vow, sirrah, when thou meet'st the 
fellow. 

Will. So I will, my liege, as I live. 

King. Who servest thou under ? 

Will. Under Captain' Gower, my liege. 

Flu. Gower is a goot captain, and is goot knowledge and 
literatured in the wars. 

King. Call him hither to me, soldier. 

Will. I will, my liege. \_Exit. 

King. Here, Fluellen ; wear thou this favour for me, and 
stick it in thy cap : when Alencon and myself were down 
together, 9 I pluck'd this glove from his helm : if any man 
challenge this, he is a friend to Alencon, and an enemy to 
our person ; if thou encounter any such, apprehend him, an 
thou dost me love. 

Flu. Your Grace does me as great honours as can be de- 
sired in the hearts of his subjects : I would fain see the man, 
that has but two legs, that shall find himself aggrief 'd at this 
glove, that is all ; I would fain but see it once, an please 
Got of His grace that I might see. 

King. Know'st thou Gower? 

Flu. He is my dear friend, an please you. 

King. Pray thee, go seek him, and bring him to my tent. 

Flu. I will fetch him. \_Exit. 



8 Jack-sauce for saucy Jack. Jack was used as a term of contempt. 

9 Henry was felled to the ground by the Duke of Alencon, but recovered, 
and slew two of the duke's attendants. Alen?on was afterwards killed by 
the King's guard, contrary to Henry's intention, who wished to save him. 



SCENE VIII. KING HENRY THE FIFTH. 147 

King. My Lord of Warwick, and my brother Gloster, 
Follow Fluellen closely at the heels : 
The glove which I have given him for a favour 
May haply purchase him a box o' the ear ; 
It is the soldier's ; I, by bargain, should 
Wear it myself. Follow, good cousin Warwick : 
If that the fellow strike him, — as I judge 
By his blunt bearing, he will keep his word, — 
Some sudden mischief may arise of it ; 
For I do know Fluellen valiant, 
And, touch'd with choler, hot as gunpowder, 
And quickly will return an injury : 
Follow, and see there be no harm between them. — 
Go you with me, uncle of Exeter. \_Exeunt 



Scene VIII. — Before King Henry's Pavilion. 
Enter Gower and Williams. 
Will. I warrant it is to knight you, captain. 
Enter Fluellen. 

Elu. Got's will and His pleasure, captain, I peseech you 
now, come apace to the King : there is more goot toward 
you peradventure than is in your knowledge to dream of. 

Will. Sir, know you this glove ? 

Flu. Know the glove ! I know the glove is a glove. 

Will. I know this ; and thus I challenge it. [Strides him. 

Flu. 'Splood, an arrant traitor as any's in the universal 
'orld, or in France, or in England ! 

Qow. How now, sir ! you villain ! 

Will. Do you think I'll be forsworn? 



I48 KING HENRY THE FIFTH. ACT IV. 

Flic. Stand away, Captain Gower ; I will give treason his 
payment into 1 plows, I warrant you. 

Will, I am no traitor. 

Flu. That's a lie in thy throat. — I charge you in his 
Majesty's name, apprehend him : he's a friend of the Duke 
Alencon's. 

Enter Warwick and Gloster. 

War. How now, how now ! what's the matter? . 

Flu. My Lord of Warwick, here is — praised be Got for 
it ! — a most contagious treason come to light, look you, as 
you shall desire in a Summer's day. — Here is his Majesty. 

Enter King Henry and Exeter. 

King. How now ! what's the matter ? 

Flu. My liege, here is a villain and a traitor, that, look 
your Grace, has struck the glove which your Majesty is take 
out of the helmet of Alencon. 

Will. My liege, this was my glove ; here is the fellow of 
it ; and he that I gave it to in change promised to wear it in 
his cap : I promised to strike him, if he did : I met this 
man with my glove in his cap, and I have been as good a 
my word. 

Flu. Your Majesty hear now, saving your Majesty's man- 
hood, what an arrant, rascally, peggarly, lousy knave it is : I 
hope your Majesty is pear me testimony, and witness, and 
will avouchment, that this is the glove of Alencon, that your 
Majesty is give me, in your conscience, now. 

King. Give me thy glove, 2 soldier : look, here is the fellow 
of it. 

1 Into and in were often used indiscriminately. 

2 Here " thy glove " evidently means the glove that Williams has in his 
cap. The King and Williams had exchanged gloves, so that now each has 



SCENE VIII. KING HENRY THE FIFTH. 149 

Twas I, indeed, thou promised'st to strike ; 
And thou hast given me most bitter terms. 

Flu. An please your Majesty, let his neck answer for it, 
if there is any martial law in the 'orld. 

King. How canst thou make me satisfaction ? 

Will. All offences, my liege, come from the heart : never 
came any from mine that might offend your Majesty. 

King. It was ourself thou didst abuse. 

Will. Your Majesty came not like yourself: you appeared 
to me but as a common man ; witness the night, your gar- 
ments, your lowliness ; and, what your Highness suffer'd under 
that shape, I beseech you take it for your own fault, and not 
mine : for, had you been as I took you for, I made no 
offence ; therefore, I beseech your Highness, pardon me. 

King. Here, uncle Exeter, fill this glove with crowns, 
And give it to this fellow. — Keep it, fellow ; 
And wear it for an honour in thy cap 
Till I do challenge it. — Give him the crowns : — 
And, captain, you must needs be friends with him. 

Flu. By this day and this light, the fellow has mettle 
enough in his pelly. — Hold, there is twelve pence for you ; 
and I pray you to serve Got, and keep you out of prawls, 
and prabbles, and quarrels, and dissensions, and, I warrant 
you, it is the petter for you. 

Will. I will none of your money. 

Flu. It is with a goot will ; I can tell you, it will serve 
you to mend your shoes : come, wherefore should you be so 
pashful ? your shoes is not so goot : 'tis a goot silling, I war- 
rant you, or I will change it. 

the other's glove in pledge. But the King has just given to Fluellen the 
glove he received from Williams ; and he now takes from his pocket the 
mate to the one that Williams received from him. 



I50 KING HENRY THE FIFTH. ACT IV. 

E?ifer an English Herald. 

King. Now, herald, are the dead number'd? 

Her. Here is the number of the slaughtered French. 

\_Delivers a paper* 

King. What prisoners of good sort are taken, uncle ? 

Exe. Charles Duke of Orleans, nephew to the King ; 
John Duke of Bourbon, and Lord Bouciqualt : 
Of other lords and barons, knights and squires, 
Full fifteen hundred, besides common men. 

King. This note doth tell me of ten thousand French 
That in the field lie slain : of princes, in this number, 
And nobles bearing banners, there lie dead 
One hundred twenty-six : added to these, 
Of knights, esquires, and gallant gentlemen, 
Eight thousand and four hundred ; of the which, 
Five hundred were but yesterday dubb'd knights : 
So that, in these ten thousand they have lost, 
There are but sixteen hundred mercenaries ; 3 
The rest are princes, barons, lords, knights, squires, 
And gentlemen of blood and quality. 
The names of those their nobles that lie dead, 
Charles Delabreth, High- Constable of France ; 
Jaques of Chatillon, Admiral of France ; 
The master of the cross-bows, Lord Rambures ; 
Great-master of France, the brave Sir Guiscard Dauphin ; 
John Duke of Alencon ; Antony Duke of Brabant, 
The brother to the Duke of Burgundy ; 
And Edward Duke of Bar : of lusty earls, 
Grandpre and Roussi, Fauconberg and Foix, 

3 Mercenaries were soldiers who received pay, as distinguished from such 
as followed their lords under the obligations of feudal service. 



SCENE VIII. KING HENRY THE FIFTH. 1 5 1 

Beaumont and Marie, Vaudemont and Lestrale. 
Here was a royal fellowship of death ! — 
Where is the number of our English dead? — 

[Herald presents another paper. 
Edward the Duke of York, the Earl of Suffolk, 
Sir Richard Ketly, Davy Gam, 4 esquire ; 
None else of name \ and of all other men 
But five and twenty. — O God, Thy arm was here ; 
And not to us, but to Thy arm alone, 
Ascribe we all ! — When, without stratagem, 
But in plain shock and even play of battle, 
Was ever known so great and little loss 
On one part and on th' other? — Take it, God, 
For it is only Thine ! 

Exe. 'Tis wonderful ! 

King. Come, go we in procession to the village ; 
And be it death proclaimed through our host 
To boast of this, or take that praise from God 
Which is His only. 

Flu. Is it not lawful, an please your Majesty, to tell how 
many is kilPd ? 

King. Yes, captain • but with this acknowledgement, 
That God fought for us. 

Flu. Yes, my conscience, He did us great goot. 

King. Do we all holy rites : 5 

4 A pleasing anecdote is tqjd of this brave Welshman. Having been 
sent out before the battle to reconnoitre the enemy, he reported, " May it 
please you, my liege, there are enough to be killed, enough to be taken 
prisoners, and enough to run away." It is said that among his other feats 
at Agincourt he saved the King's life. 

5 The king, gathering his army togither, gave thanks to Almightie God 
for so happie a victorie, causing his prelats and chapleins to sing this psalme, 
In exitu Israel de Egypto ; and commaunded every man to kneele downe 



152 KING HENRY THE FIFTH. ACT IV. 

Let there be sung Non nobis and Te Deum. 

The dead with charity enclosed in clay, 

We'll then to Calais ; and to England then ; 

Where ne'er from France arrived more happy men. [Exeunt 

Scene IX. — France. An English Court of Guard. 
Enter Fluellen and Gower. 

Gow. Nay, that's right ; but why wear you your leek to- 
day ? Saint Davy's day is past. 

Flu. There is occasions and causes why and wherefore in 
all things. I will tell you, as my friend, Captain Gower: 
The rascally, scald, 1 peggarly, lousy, pragging knave, Pistol, 
— which you and yourself, and all the 'orld, know to be no 
petter than a fellow, look you now, of no merits, — he is 
come to me, and prings me pread and salt yesterday, look 
you, and pid me eat my leek : it was in a place where I 
could not preed no contention with him ; but I will be so 
pold as to wear it in my cap till I see him once again, and 
then I will tell him a little piece of my desires. 

Gow. Why, here he comes, swelling like a turkey-cock. 

Flu. 'Tis no matter for his swellings nor his turkey- 
cocks. — 

Enter Pistol. 

Got pless you, Auncient Pistol ! you scurvy, lousy knave, 
Got pless you ! 

on the ground at this verse, Non nobis, Domine, non nobis, sed nomini tuo da 
gloriam. Which doone, he caused Te Deum with certeine anthems to be 
soong, giving laud and praise to God, without boasting of his owne force or 
anie humane power. — HOLINSHED. 

1 Scald is scurvy or scabby, in its proper meaning ; but came to be used 
as a word of contempt, implying poverty, disease, and filth. 



SCENE IX. KING HENRY THE FIFTH. 153 

Pish Ha ! art thou bedlam ? dost thou thirst, base Trojan, 
To have me fold up Parca's fatal web ? 
Hence ! I am qualmish at the smell of leek. 

Flu. I peseech you heartily, scurvy, lousy knave, at my 
desires, and my requests, and my petitions, to eat, look you, 
this leek : because, look you, you do not love it, nor your 
affections, and your appetites, and your digestions, does not 
agree with it, I would desire you to eat it. 

Pist. Not for Cadwallader and all his goats. 

Flu, There is one goat for you. \_Strikes him.~\ Will you 
be so goot, scald knave, as eat it ? 

Pist. Base Trojan, thou shalt die. 

Flu. You say very true, scald knave ; when Got's will is : 
I will desire you to live in the mean time, and eat your vict- 
uals : come, there is sauce for it. [Strikes him again.'] You 
called me yesterday mountain-squire ; but I will make you 
to-day a squire of low degree. I pray you, fall to : if you 
can mock a leek, you can eat a leek. 

Gow. Enough, captain : you have astonish'd 2 him. 

Flu. I say, I will make him eat some part of my leek, or 
I will peat his pate four days. — Pite, I pray you ; it is goot 
for your green wound and your ploody coxcomb. 

Pist. Must I bite ? 

Flu. Yes, certainly, and out of doubt, and out of ques- 
tion too, and ambiguities. 

Pist. By this leek, I will most horribly revenge : 
I eat, and eke I swear — 

Flu. Eat, I pray you : will you have some more sauce to 
your leek ? there is not enough leek to swear by. 

Pist. Quiet thy cudgel ; thou dost see I eat. 

2 That is, stunned him, knocked him into confusion and numbness. Such 
is the proper meaning of to astonish. 



154 KING HENRY THE FIFTH. ACT IV. 

Flu. Much goot do you, scald knave, heartily. Nay, pray 
you, throw none away ; the skin is goot for your proken cox- 
comb. When you take occasions to see leeks hereafter, I 
pray you, mock at 'em ; that is all. 

Fist. Good. 

Flu. Ay, leeks is goot : hold you, there is a groat to heal 
your pate. 

Fist. Me a groat ! 

Flu. Yes, verily and in truth, you shall take it ; or I have 
another leek in my pocket, which you shall eat. 

Fist. I take thy groat in earnest of revenge. 

Flu. If I owe you any thing, I will pay you in cudgels : 
you shall be a woodmonger, and buy nothing of me but cud- 
gels. Got b' wi' you, and keep you, and heal your pate. 

\_Exit. 

Fist. All Hell shall stir for this. 

Gow. Go, go ; you are a counterfeit cowardly knave. 
Will you mock at an ancient tradition, — begun upon an 
honourable respect, and worn as a memorable trophy of pre- 
deceased valour, — and dare not avouch in your deeds any of 
your words ? I have seen you gleeking and galling 3 at this 
gentleman twice or thrice. You thought, because he could 
not speak English in the native garb, he could not therefore 
handle an English cudgel : you find it otherwise ; and hence- 
forth let a Welsh correction teach you a good English con- 
dition. 4 Fare ye well. \_Exit. 

Fist. Doth Fortune play the huswife 5 with me now ? 
News have I, that my Nell is dead i' the spital 

3 Gleeking is scoffing, flouting ; and galling is here used in a kindred 
sense, — venting sarcasms, things that irritate. 

4 Condition, as usual, for temper or disposition. 

6 Huswife for jilt, or hussy, as we have it still in common speech. 



CHORUS. KING HENRY THE FIFTH. 155 

Of malady of France ; 

And there my rendezvous is quite cut off. 

Old I do wax ; and from my weary limbs 

Honour is cudgell'd. Well, bawd will I turn, 

And something lean to cutpurse of quick hand. 

To England will I steal, and there I'll steal : 

And patches will I get unto these scars, 

And swear I got them in the Gallia wars. [Exit. 



ACT V. 

Enter Chorus. 



Cho. Vouchsafe all those that have not read the story, 
That I may prompt them : and, for such as have, 
I humbly pray them to admit th' excuse 
Of time, of numbers, and due course of things, 
Which cannot in their huge and proper life 
Be here presented. Now we bear the King 
Toward Calais : grant him there ; there seen, 
Heave him away upon your winged thoughts 
Athwart the sea. Behold, the English beach 
Pales-in l the flood with men, with wives, and boys, 
Whose shouts and claps out-voice the deep-mouth'd sea, 
Which, like a mighty whiffler 2 'fore the King, 
Seems to prepare his way : so let him land ; 

1 To pale-in is to fence round or enclose with palings. 

2 Whiffle is another form of whistle, and was used of a fife or pipe. As 
fifers or pipers commonly marched at the head of troops and processions, 
so whiffler came to be used of any one who went ahead of another to clear 
the way. 



156 KING HENRY THE FIFTH. ACT V. 

And solemnly 3 see him set on to London : 

So swift a pace hath thought, that even now 

You may imagine him upon Blackheath. 

Where-that 4 his lords desire him to have borne 

His bruised helmet and his bended sword 

Before him through the city, he forbids it, 

Being free from vainness and self-glorious pride ; 

Giving full trophy, signal, and ostent, 5 

Quite from himself to God. But now behold, 

In the quick forge and working-house of thought, 

How London doth pour out her citizens ! 

The Mayor and all his brethren, in best sort, — 

Like to the senators of th' antique Rome, 

With the plebeians swarming at their heels, — 

Go forth, and fetch their conquering Caesar in : 

As, by a lower but loving likelihood, 

Were now the general of our gracious Empress — 

As in good time he may — from Ireland coming, 

Bringing rebellion broached 6 on his sword, 

How many would the peaceful city quit, 

To welcome him ! much more, and much more cause, 

Did they this Harry. Now in London place him ; 

(As yet the lamentation of the French 

3 Solemnly is in state, or with ordered pomp and ceremony. The proper 
construction is, " see him set on solemnly to London." 

4 Where-that is plainly equivalent to whereas. 

6 Ostent is show or display. See The Merchant, page 113, note 38. 

6 Broached is pierced through, transjixed. — The allusion is to the Earl 
of Essex, who in April, 1599, set out for Ireland, as Governor, to put down 
the rebellion of Tyrone. His departure was an occasion of great enthu- 
siasm, people of all ranks thronging around him and showering benedictions 
upon him. But these bright anticipations were sadly disappointed. The 
expedition failed utterly; and the Earl's return, in September following, 
was unhonoured and unmarked. 



SCENE I. KING HENRY THE FIFTH. 157 

Invites the King of England's stay at home ; 

The Emperor coming 7 in behalf of France, 

To order peace between them ;) and omit 

All the occurrences, whatever chanced, 

Till Harry's back-return again to France : 

There must we bring him ; and myself have play'd 

The interim, by remembering you 'tis past. 

Then brook abridgement ; and your eyes advance, 

After your thoughts, straight back again to France. \Exit. 

Scene I. — Troyes in Champagne. An Apartment in the 
French King's Palace. 

Enter, from one side, King Henry, Bedford, Gloster, 
Exeter, Warwick, Westmoreland, and other Lords ; 
from the other side, the French King, Queen Isabel, the 
Princess Catharine, Alice, other Ladies, and Lords; the 
Duke of Burgundy, and his Train. 

K. Hen. Peace to this meeting, wherefore we are met ! x — 
Unto our brother France, and to our sister, 
Health and fair time of day ; — joy and good wishes 
To our most fair and princely cousin Catharine ; — 
And, as a branch and member of this royalty, 
By whom this great assembly is contrived, 
We do salute you, Duke of Burgundy ; — 
And, princes French, and peers, health to you all ! 

Fr. King. Right joyous are we to behold your face, 

7 The Emperor Sigismund, who was married to Henry's second cousin 
and who visited England at this time. 

1 They have met together for the purpose of knitting up a peace, and the 
King begins by wishing peace to the meeting. " Peace, for which we are 
met, be to the meeting." 



I58 KING HENRY THE FIFTH. ACT V. 

Most worthy brother England ; fairly met : — 
So are you, princes English, every one. 

Q. Isa. So happy be the issue, brother England, 
Of this good day and of this gracious meeting, 
As we are now glad to behold your eyes ; 
Your eyes, which hitherto have born in them 
Against the French, that met them in their bent, 
The fatal balls of murdering basilisks : 2 
The venom of such looks, we fairly hope, 
Have lost 3 their quality ; and that this day 
Shall change all griefs and quarrels into love. 

K. Hen. To cry amen to that, thus we appear. 

Q. Isa. You English princes all, I do salute you. 

Bur. My duty to you both, on equal love, 
Great Kings of France and England ! That I've labour'd, 
With all my wits, my pains, and strong endeavours, 
To bring your most imperial Majesties 
Unto this bar 4 and royal interview, 
Your mightiness' on both parts best can witness. 
Since, then, my office hath so far prevail'd, 
That, face to face and royal eye to eye, 
You have congreeted, let it not disgrace me, 

2 The basilisk was a serpent which, it was anciently supposed, could 
destroy the object of his vengeance by merely looking at it. It was also a 
great gu?i ; and the allusion here is double. See King Richard the Third, 
page 145, note 4. 

3 Here the verb is made to agree with the nearest substantive, looks, in- 
stead of with its proper nominative, venom. Shakespeare has many like 
instances of false concord. See page 124, note 27. 

4 That is, this place of congress. Bar is a shortened form of barrier. 
Ordinarily, when sovereigns were to meet in the field for such purposes, a 
barrier was erected at the place agreed upon, as a protection of either party 
against the possible violence or treachery of the other. Hence bar came to 
be used for any place of meeting 



SCENE I. KING HENRY THE FIFTH. 159 

If I demand, before this royal view, 

What rub or what impediment there is, 

Why that the naked, poor, and mangled Peace, 

Dear nurse of arts, plenty, and joyful births, 

Should not, in this best garden of the world, 

Our fertile France, put up her lovely visage ? 

Alas, she hath from France too long been chased ! 

And all her husbandry doth lie on heaps, 

Corrupting in its own fertility. 

Her vine, the merry cheerer of the heart, 

Unpruned dies ; her hedges even-pleach'd, 5 

Like prisoners wildly overgrown with hair, 

Put forth disorder'd twigs ; her fallow leas 

The darnel, hemlock, and rank fumitory, 

Do root upon, while that the coulter rusts, 

That should deracinate 6 such savagery ; 

The even mead, that erst brought sweetly forth 

The freckled cowslip, burnet, and green clover, 

Wanting the scythe, all uncorrected, rank, 

Conceives by idleness, and nothing teems 

But hateful docks, rough thistles, kecksies, burs, 

Losing both beauty and utility. 

And as our vineyards, fallows, meads, and hedges, 

Defective in their natures, 7 grow to vvildness, 

Even so our houses, and ourselves and children, 

5 Pleached, plaited, platted are all words of the same meaning, like the 
Latin plicitum ; folded together, or interwoven. So in Much Ado About 
Nothing, iii. i ; " The pleached bower, where honeysuckles, ripened by the 
sun, forbid the sun to enter." 

6 To deracinate is to force up by the roots. 

7 Not defective in their productive virtue, for they grew to wildness ; but 
defective in their proper virtue, which was to serve man with food and sup- 
port. 



l60 KING HENRY THE FIFTH. ACT V. 

Have lost, or do not learn for want of time, 
The sciences that should become our country ; 
But grow, like savages, — as soldiers will, 
That nothing do but meditate on blood, — 
To swearing, and stern looks, defused 8 attire, 
And every thing that seems unnatural. 
Which to reduce into our former favour, 9 
You are assembled : and my speech entreats 
That I may know the let, 10 why gentle Peace 
Should not expel these inconveniences, 
And bless us with her former qualities. 

K. Hen. If, Duke of Burgundy, you would the peace, 
Whose want gives growth to th' imperfections 
Which you have cited, you must buy that peace 
With full accord to all our just demands ; 
Whose tenours and particular effects 
You have, enscheduled briefly, in your hands. 

Bur. The King hath heard them ; to the which as yet 
There is no answer made. 

K. Hen. Well, then, the peace, 

Which you before so urged, lies in his answer. 

Fr. King. I have but with a cursorary 11 eye 
O'erglanced the articles : pleaseth your Grace 
T' appoint some of your Council presently 
To sit with us once more, with better heed 

8 It appears from Florio's Dictionary, that diffused, or defused, was used 
for confused. Defused attire is therefore disordered or dishevelled attire. 

9 Favour here means comeliness of appearance. — To reduce is to restore 
or bring back; a sense of the word now obsolete, but legitimate from the 
Latin reduco. 

10 This is the ancient let, meaning hindrance or obstruction. 

11 Cursorary appears to be a word of the Poet's own coining, no other 
instance of it being known. Cursory had not syllables enough for the place. 



SCENE I. KING HENRY THE FIFTH. l6l 

To re-survey them, we will suddenly 
Pass our accept 12 and peremptory answer. 

K. Hen. Brother, we shall. — Go, uncle Exeter, — 
And brother Clarence, — and you, brother Gloster, — 
Warwick, — and Huntingdon, 13 — go with the King ; 
And take with you free power to ratify, 
Augment, or alter, as your wisdoms best 
Shall see advantageable 14 for our dignity, 
Any thing in or out of our demands ; 
And we'll consign thereto. — Will you, fair sister, 
Go with the princes, or stay here with us ? 

Q. Is a. Our gracious brother, I will go with them : 
Haply a woman's voice may do some good, 
When articles too nicely urged be stood on. 

K. Hen. Yet leave our cousin Catharine here with us : 
She is our capital demand, comprised 
Within the fore-rank of our articles. 

Q. Is a. She hath good leave. 

[ Exeunt all but Henry, Catharine, and Alice. 

K. Hen. Fair Catharine, and most fair ! 

Will you vouchsafe to teach a soldier terms 
Such as will enter at a lady's ear, 
And plead his love-suit to her gentle heart ? 

12 Suddenly in the sense of quickly or speedily. Often so. To pass, as 
the word is here used, is, apparently, \.ofix, conclude, or agree upon. So in 
The Taming of the Shrew, iv. 2 : " To pass assurance of a dower in mar- 
riage." Accept, if the text be right, is merely a shortened form of acceptance. 
Shakespeare uses the same freedom in many words. See Critical Notes. 

13 John Holland, Earl of Huntington, who afterwards married the widow 
of Edmund Mortimer, Earl of March. Neither Huntingdon nor Clarence is 
in the list of Dramatis Personas, as neither of them speaks a word. 

14 Advantageable for advantageous, just as, elsewhere, disputable for dis- 
putatious. This confusion of active and passive forms, both in adjectives 
and participles, occurs very often. See As You Like It, page 66, note 5, 



1 62 KING HENRY THE FIFTH. ACT V. 

Cath. Your Majesty shall mock at me ; I cannot speak 
your England. 

K. Hen. O fair Catharine, if you will love me soundly 
with your French heart, I will be glad to hear you confess 
it brokenly with your English tongue. Do you like me, 
Kate? 

Cath. Pardonnez-moi, I cannot tell vat is like me. 

K. Hen. An angel is like you, Kate, and you are like an 
angel. 

Cath. Que dii il? que je suis semblable a les anges ? 

Alice. Out, vraiment, saitf voire Grace, ainsi dit-il. 

K. Hen. I said so, dear Catharine ; and I must not blush 
to affirm it. 

Cath. O bon Dieu ! les langaes des hommes sont pleines de 
tromperies. 

K. Hen. What says she, fair one ? ' that the tongues of 
men are full of deceit? 

Alice. Out', dat de tongues of de mans is be full of de- 
ceits, — dat is de Princess. 

K. Hen. The Princess is the better Englishwoman. — 
Ffaith, Kate, my wooing is fit for thy understanding : I am 
glad thou canst speak no better English ; for, if thou couldst, 
thou wouldst find me such a plain king, that thou wouldst 
think I had sold my farm to buy my crown. I know no ways 
to mince it in love, but directly to say, / love you ; then, if 
you urge me further than to say, Do you, in faith? I wear 
out my suit. Give me your answer ; i'faith, do ; and so clap 
hands and a bargain : how say you, lady ? 

Cath. Sauf voire Honneur, me understand veil. 

K. Hen. Marry, if you would put me to verses or to dance 
for your sake, Kate, why, you undid me : for the one, I have 
neither words nor measure ; and for the other, I have no 



SCENE i. KING HENRY THE FIFTH. 163 

strength in measure, 15 yet a reasonable measure in strength. 
If I could win a lady at leap-frog, or by vaulting into my 
saddle with my armour on my back, under the correction of 
bragging be it spoken, I should quickly leap into a wife. Or, 
if I might buffet for my love, or bound my horse for her 
favours, I could lay on like a butcher, and sit like a jack- 
an-apes, never off. But, before God, Kate, I cannot look 
greenly, nor gasp out my eloquence, nor I have no cunning 
in protestation ; only downright oaths, which I never use till 
urged, nor never break for urging. If thou canst love a fel- 
low of this temper, Kate, — whose face is not worth sun-burn- 
ing, that never looks in his glass for love of any thing he 
sees there, — let thine eye be thy cook. I speak to thee plain 
soldier : if thou canst love me for this, take me ; if not, to say 
to thee that I shall die, is true ; but for thy love, by the 
Lord, no ; yet I love thee too. And, while thou livest, dear 
Kate, take a fellow of plain and uncoined constancy ; 16 for he 
perforce must do thee right, because he hath not the gift to 
woo in other places : for these fellows of infinite tongue, 
that can rhyme themselves into ladies' favours, they do always 
reason themselves out again. What ! a speaker is but a pra- 
ter ; a rhyme is but a ballad. A good leg will fall ; 17 a 
straight back will stoop ; a black beard will turn white ; a 
curPd pate will grow bald ; a fair face will wither ; a full eye 
will wax hollow : but a good heart, Kate, is the Sun and the 
Moon ; or, rather, the Sun, and not the Moon ; for it shines 

15 Measure is here used in the sense of dancing. To tread or dance a 
measure, was a common phrase. See Much Ado, page 42, note 5. 

16 Uncoined constancy probably means an affection that has never " gone 
forth " ; a heart like virgin gold, that has never had any image stamped 
upon it. 

17 Will /a// away, leaving " his youthful hose a world too wide for his 
shrunk shank." 



164 KING HENRY THE FIFTH. ACT V. 

bright, and never changes, but keeps his course truly. If 
thou would have such a one, take me ; and take me, take 
a soldier; take a soldier, take a king : and what say'st thou, 
then, to my love ? speak, my fair, and fairly, I pray thee. 

Cath. Is it possible dat I sould love de enemy of France? 

K. Hen. No ; it is not possible you should love the enemy 
of France, Kate : but, in loving me, you should love the 
friend of France ; for I love France so well, that I will not 
part with a village of it ; I will have it all mine : and, Kate, 
when France is mine and I am yours, then yours is France 
and you are mine. 

Cath. I cannot tell vat is dat. 

K. Hen. No, Kate ? I will tell thee in French ; which I 
am sure will hang upon my tongue like a new-married wife 
about her husband's neck, hardly to be shook off. Quand 
/'a.i la possession de France, et quand vous avez la possession 
de ?noi, — let me see, what then ? Saint Denis be my speed ! 
— done voire est France et vous etes mienne. It is as easy 
for me, Kate, to conquer the kingdom, as to speak so much 
more French : I shall never move thee in French, unless it 
be to laugh at me. 

Cath. Sauf voire Honneur, le Francais que vous parlez, il 
est meilleur que P Anglais lequelje parle. 

K. Hen. No, faith, is't not, Kate ; but thy speaking of 
my tongue, and I thine, most truly-falsely, must needs be 
granted to be much at one. But, Kate, dost thou under- 
stand thus much English, Canst thou love me ? 

Cath. I cannot tell. 

K. Hen. Can any of your neighbours tell, Kate ? I'll ask 
them. Come, I know thou lovest me : and at night, when 
you come into your closet, you'll question this gentlewoman 
about me ; and I know, Kate, you will to her dispraise those 



SCENE I. KING HENRY THE FIFTH. l6$ 

parts in me that you love with your heart : but, good Kate, 
mock me mercifully ; the rather, gentle Princess, because I 
love thee cruelly. If ever thou be'st mine, Kate, — as I have 
a saving faith within me tells me thou shalt, — I get thee 
with scrambling, and thou must therefore needs prove a good 
soldier-breeder. What say'st thou, my fair flower-de-luce ? 

Cath. I do not know dat. 

K. Hen. No ; 'tis hereafter to know, but now to promise : 
do but now promise, Kate, you will endeavour for your 
French part ; and for my English moiety take the word of a 
king and a bachelor. How answer you, la plus belle Catha- 
rine du monde, mon tres-chere et divine deesse ? 

Cath. Your Majeste avefausse French enough to deceive 
de most sage demoiselle dat is en France. 

K. Hen. Now, fie upon my false French ! By mine hon- 
our, in true English, I love thee, Kate : by which honour 
I dare not swear thou lovest me ; yet my blood begins to 
flatter me that thou dost, notwithstanding the poor and un- 
tempting effect of my visage. Now, beshrew my father's 
ambition ! he was thinking of civil wars when he got me : 
therefore was I created with a stubborn outside, with an as- 
pect of iron, that, when I come to woo ladies, I fright them. 
But, in faith, Kate, the elder I wax, the better I shall appear : 
my comfort is, that old age, that ill layer-up of beauty, can 
do no more spoil upon my face : thou hast me, if thou hast 
me, at the worst ; and thou shalt wear me, if thou wear me, 
better and better. And therefore tell me, most fair Catha- 
rine, will you have me ? Put off your maiden blushes ; avouch 
the thoughts of your heart with the looks of an empress ; take 
me by the hand, and say, Harry of England, I am thine : 
which word thou shalt no sooner bless mine ear withal, but 
I will tell thee aloud, England is thine, Ireland is thine. 



1 66 KING HENRY THE FIFTH. ACT V. 

France is thine, and Henry Plantagenet is thine; who, 
though I speak it before his face, if he be not fellow with the 
best king, thou shalt find the best king of good fellows. 
Come, your answer in broken music, 18 for thy voice is 
music, and thy English broken ; therefore, queen of all Catha- 
rines, break thy mind to me in broken English : wilt thou 
have me? 

Cath. Dat is as it sail please de rot mon per e. 

K. Hen. Nay, it will please him well, Kate, — it shall 
please him, Kate. 

Cath. Den it sail also content me. 

K. Hen. Upon that I kiss your hand, and I call you my 
queen. 

Cath. Laissez, mon seigneur, laissez, laissez : ma foi, je 
ne veux point que vous abaissiez votre grandeur en baisant 
la main (Tune votre indigne serviteur ; excusez-moi, je vous 
supplie, mon tres-puissant seigneur. 

K. Hen. Then I will kiss your lips, Kate. 

Cath. Les dames et demoiselles pour etre baisees devant leur 
noces, il n 'est pas la coutume de France. 

K. Hen. Madam my interpreter, what says she ? 

Alice. Dat it is not be de fashion pour les ladies of France, 
— I cannot tell what is baiser en Anglish. 

K. Hen. To kiss. 

Alice. Your Majesty entendre bettre que moi. 

K. Hen. It is not a fashion for the maids in France to 
kiss before they are married, would she say? 

Alice. Ouiy vraiment. 

K. Hen. O Kate, nice 19 customs curtsy to great kings. 

18 "Broken music " is said to have meant the music of such instruments 
as lutes, harps, &c. See As You Like It, page 41, note 11. 

19 Nice here is squeamish, scrupulous, fastidious. See As You Like It, 
page 108, note 2. 



SCENE I. KING HENRY THE FIFTH. l6j 

Dear Kate, you and I cannot be confined within the weak list 20 
of a country's fashion : we are the makers of manners, Kate ; 
and the liberty that follows our places stops the mouth of all 
find-faults, — as I will do yours for upholding the nice fashion 
of your country in denying me a kiss : therefore, patiently 
and yielding. [Kissing her.~] You have witchcraft in your 
lips, Kate : there is more eloquence in a sugar touch of them 
than in the tongues of the French Council ; and they should 
sooner persuade Harry of England than a general petition of 
monarchs. Here comes your father. 

Re-enter the French King and Queen, Burgundy, Bedford, 
Gloster, Exeter, Warwick, Westmoreland, &c. 

Bur. God save your Majesty ! my royal cousin, 
Teach you our Princess English ? 

K. Hen. I would have her learn, my fair cousin, how 
perfectly I love her j and that is good English. 

Bur. Is she not apt? 

K. Hen. Our tongue is rough, coz, and my condition is 
not smooth ; so that, having neither the voice nor the heart 
of flattery about me, I cannot so conjure up the spirit of love 
in her, that he will appear in his true likeness. 

Bur. Pardon the frankness of my mirth, if I answer you 
for that. If you would conjure in her, you must make a 
circle ; 21 if conjure up love in her in his true likeness, he must 
appear naked and blind. Can you blame her, then, being a 
maid yet rosed-over with the virgin crimson of modesty, if 



•20 Weak list is slight barrier; from the language of the tilt-yard. 

21 Conjurers used to mark out a circle on the ground, within which their 
conjuring was to take effect by the appearance of the beings invoked. 
Probably an equivoque is here intended, circle being also used for crown. 



1 68 KING HENRY THE FIFTH. ACT V. 

she deny the appearance of a naked blind boy ? It were, 
my lord, a hard condition for a maid to consign to. 

K. Hen. Yet they do wink and yield ; as love is blind 
and enforces. 

Bur. They are then excused, my lord, when they see not 
what they do. 

K. Hen. Then, good my lord, teach your cousin to con- 
sent winking. 

Bur. I will wink-on her to consent, my lord, if you will 
teach her to know my meaning : for maids, well summer'd 
and warm kept, are like flies at Bartholomew-tide, 22 blind, 
though they have their eyes. 

K. Hen. This moral 23 ties me over to time and a hot 
Summer; and so I shall catch the fly, your cousin, in the 
latter end, and she must be blind too. 

Bur. As love is, my lord, before it loves. 

K. Hen. It is so : and you may, some of you, thank love 
for my blindness, who cannot see many a fair French city for 
one fair French maid that stands in my way. 

Fr. King. Yes, my lord, you see them perspectively, the 
cities turn'd into a maid ; 24 for they are girdled with maiden 
walls that war hath never enter'd. 

K. Hen. Shall Kate be my wife ? 

22 The feast of St. Bartholomew falls on the 24th of August. — Being un- 
skilled in entomology, I cannot vouch for the scientific accuracy of the 
text. 

23 A moral is the meaning or application of a fable or apologue. 

24 Perspectives were glasses or instruments to look through, such being 
the proper meaning of the word. They were of various kinds, and some, it 
seems, played rather queer pranks with the object looked at. One kind is 
thus spoken of in Humane Industry, 1651 : " A picture of the chancellor of 
France presented to the common beholder a multitude of little faces ; but 
if one did look at it through a perspective, there appeared only a single 
pourtraiture of the chancellor." See Richard II., page 82, note 2. 



SCENE I. KING HENRY THE FIFTH. 169 

Fr. King. So please you. 

K. Hen. I am content ; so the maiden cities you talk of 
may wait on her : so the maid that stood in the way for my 
wish shall show me the way to my will. 

Fr. King. We have consented to all terms of reason. 

K. Hen. Is't so, my lords of England ? 

West. The King hath granted every article : 
His daughter first ; and then, in sequel, all, 
According to their first-proposed natures. 

Exe. Only, he hath not yet subscribed this : Where your 
Majesty demands that the King of France, having any oc- 
casion to write for matter of grant, shall name your High- 
ness in this form and with this addition, in French, Notre 
tres-cher fils Henri, roi d' Angle ter re, he ri tier de France ; 
and thus in Latin, Prcedarissimus 25 filius noster Henricus, 
rex Anglice, et hares Francice. 

Fr. King. Nor this I have not, brother, so denied, 
But your request shall make me let it pass. 

K. Hen. I pray you, then, in love and dear alliance, 
Let that one article rank with the rest ; 
And thereupon give me your daughter. 

Fr. King. Take her, fair son ; and from her blood raise 
up 
Issue to me ; that the contending kingdoms 
Of France and England, whose very shores look pale 
With envy of each other's happiness, 
May cease their hatred ; and this dear conjunction 
Plant neighbourhood and Christian-like accord 

25 Prcedarissimus for Prcecarissimus. Shakespeare followed Holinshed, 
in whose Chronicle it stands thus. Indeed, all the old historians have the 
same blunder. In the original treaty of Troyes, printed in Rymer, it is 
prcecarissimus. 



I/O KING HENRY THE FIFTH. ACT V. 

In their sweet bosoms, that ne'er war advance 
His bleeding sword 'twixt England and fair France. 

All. Amen ! 

K. Hen. Now, welcome, Kate ; — and bear me witness all, 
That here I kiss her as my sovereign Queen. \_Flourish. 

Q. Isa. God, the best maker of all marriages, 
Combine your hearts in one, your realms in one ! 
As man and wife, being two, are one in love, 
So be there 'twixt your kingdoms such a spousal, 
That never may ill office, or fell jealousy, 
Which troubles oft the bed of blessed marriage, 
Thrust in between the paction 26 of these kingdoms, 
To make divorce of their incorporate league ; 
That English may as French, French Englishmen, 
Receive each other ! — God speak this Amen ! 

All. Amen ! 

K. Hen. Prepare we for our marriage : — on which day, 
My Lord of Burgundy, we'll take your oath, 
And all the peers', for surety of our league. — 
Then shall I swear to Kate, and you to me ; 
And may our oaths well kept and prosperous be ! 

\_Sennet. Exeunt, 

Enter Chorus. 

Chor. Thus far, with rough and all-unable pen, 
Our bending 27 author hath pursued the story ; 
In little room confining mighty men, 
Mangling by starts the full course of their glory. 28 

26 Paction is compact, alliance, or league. 

27 Bending beneath the weight of the subject, as being unequal to it. 

28 Giving only fragments and glimpses of their full career. 



SCENE I. KING HENRY THE FIFTH. I /I 

Small time, but, in that small, most greatly lived 

This star of England : Fortune made his sword ; 

By which the world's best garden he achieved, 

And of it left his son imperial lord. 

Henry the Sixth, in infant bands crown'd King 

Of France and England, did this King succeed ; 

Whose State so many had the managing, 

That they lost France, and made his England bleed : 

Which oft our stage hath shown ; 29 and, for their sake, 

In your fair minds let this acceptance take. [Exit. 

29 The three Parts of King Henry VI. were written several years before 
this play, and often acted. 



CRITICAL NOTES. 



Prologue. 

Page 38. O, pardon ! since a crooked figure may 

Attest in little place a million. — Lettsom conjectures place to 
be an erratum for space. Rightly, I suspect. 

Act i., Scene i. 

P. 40. We lose the better half of our possessions. — So Hanmer and 
Collier's second folio. The old text has possession. 

P. 40. Cant. The King is full of grace and fair regard, 
And a true lover of the holy Church. 

Ely. The courses of his youth promised it not. 
Cant. The breath no sooner left his father' 's body, &c. — In the 
old text, the second of these lines is assigned to Ely, and the last two 
to Canterbury ; an arrangement, I think, that badly unhinges the dia- 
logue. The correction is Keightley's. 

P. 41. Never came reformation in a flood, 

With such a heady current, scouring faults. — So the second 
folio. The first has currance, which may be from the old French 
courance, and so may yield a fitting sense. But, as Lettsom remarks, 
" it is plain from the context that the scouring of a river is meant. 
Current, therefore, seems much the safer reading." 

P. 41. So that the art and practic part of life 

Must be the mistress to his theoric. — So the third folio. The 
earlier editions read " to this theoric." The context readily shows his 
to be right. 



174 KING HENRY THE FIFTH. 

P. 43. The several and unhidden passages 

Of his true titles to some certain dukedoms, &c. — The old text 
has severals, which is sometimes explained details or particulars. But 
the context seems fairly to require several, which is Pope's reading. 
Here, as in divers other places, and, I take it, is simply redundant. So 
that the meaning is " The several open and apparent derivations," &c. 

Act i., Scene 2. 

P. 47. To fine his title tenth some show of truth. --So the quartos. 
The folio reads "To find his title." Neither^/**? nor find yields a very 
appropriate sense. Johnson at one time conjectured line, but after- 
wards withdrew the conjecture. As the Poet repeatedly uses to line 
for to strengthen, I should make no scruple of adopting that word but 
that line occurs in a very different sense just before. Perhaps bind is 
the right word. To fix, to confirm, to secure are among the ordinary 
senses of to bind; so that the word would fit the context very well. 
And in my experience the letters b and f are apt to be confounded. 
Collier's second folio substitutes found. See foot-note 9. 

P. 48. And rather choose to hide them in a net 

Than amply to imbar their crooked titles, &c. — So the Cam- 
bridge Editors. The first two quartos have imbace, the third embrace, 
and the folio imbarre. Warburton proposed imbare, and most of the 
recent editors have adopted that reading. Of course to imbare must 
mean to lay bare, to expose. But I think imbar, in the sense of bar, 
that is, exclude or set aside, accords quite as well with the context, and 
with less of departure from authority. 

P. 48. For in the Book of Numbers it is writ. 

When the man dies, let the inheritance 

Descend unto the daughter. — So the folio. The quartos read 
"When the sonne dyes." In our common version of the Bible, the 
passage referred to stands thus : " If a ??ian die, and have no son, then 
ye shall cause the inheritance to pass unto his daughter." For the 
same as given by Holinshed, see foot-note 13. As Dyce observes, 
" There is not a word in Scripture about the contingency of the son 
dying ; and the law was declared in consequence of the claim put in 



CRITICAL NOTES. 175 

by the daughters of Zelophehad, ' who had no sons.' " So I think there 
can be no doubt that we ought to read with the folio ; where the hav- 
ing no son is fairly implied. 

P. 49. Your brother kings and monarchs of the Earth 
Do all expect that you should rouse yourself, 
As did the former lions of your blood : 
They kno%u your Grace hath cause and means and might. 

West. So hath your Highness, &c. — So'Walker, and with 
evident propriety. The old text sets the prefix " West." before the last 
line of the preceding speech. 

P. 50. The King of Scots ; whom she did send to France, 
To fill King Edward'' 's fame with prisoner kings, 
And make her chronicle as rich with praise, &c. — The quar- 
tos read "your chronicle," the folio " their chronicle." The correc- 
tion is fully justified by the context. It was proposed by Johnson. — 
In the second line, Collier's second folio substitutes train for fame. 
Not an impi-ovement, I think. 

P. 51. Playing the mouse in absence of the cat, 

To tear and havoc more than she can eat. — Instead of tear, 
the quartos have spoil, the folio tame ; the latter being no doubt a 
misprint for tear, which is Rowe's correction. 

P. 5 1 . Yet that is but a crush'd necessity, 

Since we have locks to safeguard necessaries, 

And pretty traps to catch the petty thieves. — So the folio. In- 
stead of crush'd, the quartos have curst. Several changes have been 
made or proposed, the best of which, I think, is Mason's, " that is not 
a curst necessity." Of recent editors, Collier, White, and Dyce read 
curst ; Singer, Staunton, and the Cambridge Editors, crush'd. On the 
whole, I find it not easy to choose between the two readings. The 
sense which the context seems to require is that of a forced or strained 
necessity; that is, the necessity is apparent only: it is not really 
necessary that the cat should stay at home, since we have other means 
of security against the mousing weasel. Can this sense be fairly got 
out of crushed, by taking the word to be used proleptically ? a necessity 



I76 KING HENRY THE FIFTH. 

that will or may be crushed or overcome by the use of locks and 
traps ? The Poet has many like instances of prolepsis. With curst, 
the meaning seems to be, that it is but a perverse or untoward neces- 
sity, — one that may vex and annoy ; yet it is by no means invincible, 
since the cat's presence can be made up by something else. — In the 
third line, Steevens proposed petty instead of pretty. But Shakespeare 
repeatedly uses pretty with the sense of fit, apt, or suitable. 

P. 52. Creatures that, by a rule in Nature, teach 

The art of order to a peopled kingdom. — So Pope and Col- 
lier's second folio. The old text reads "The Act of Order." To teach 
an act is rather odd English. 

P. 53. France being ours, we'll bend it to our awe, 
Or break it all to pieces : there we'll sit, 

Ruling in large and ample empery, &c. — The old text reads 
" Or there wee'l sit " ; or having no doubt been repeated by mistake. 
Corrected by Pope. 

P. 53. Or else our grave, 

Like Turkish mutes, shall have a tongueless mouth. — So 
Walker. The folio has "Like Turkish mute?' The corresponding 
passage in the quartos has " like toonglesse mutes." 

P. 54. Did claim some certain dukedoms, in the right 

Of your great predecessor, Edward Third. — So Collier's sec- 
ond folio. The old text has "King Edward the Third." Pope left 
out King, and Walker would omit the. 

P. 56. We never valued this poor seat of England ; 
And therefore, living here, did give our self 
To barbarous license. — The old text reads " living hence." 
The correction is Hanmer's. Mason justly says of the old reading, 
that it " cannot be reconciled to sense." 

P. 56. But tell the Dauphin, I will keep my state, 
Be like a king, and show my soul of greatness, 
When I do rouse me in my throne of France : 



CRITICAL NOTES. 177 

For here / have laid by my majesty, 

And plodded like a man for zvor king days ; 

But I will rise there with so full a glory, &c. — So Collier's 
second folio. The old copies have, in the second line, sail instead of 
soul, and, in the fourth, that and this instead of here. The words sail 
and throne, it seems to me, do not pull very well together ; while the 
strained attempts which have been made, to explain that or this, are 
enough, 1 think, to put the old text out of court. 

Act i., Scene 3. 

P. 58. Scene III. — London, &>c. — In the folio the first Act of this 
play has no marking of the scenes at all, and extends down to the end 
of what modern editions give as the end of the second Act. And the 
matter of the present scene is there placed after the second Chorus. 
Various editors, from Pope downwards, have judged, and rightly, no 
doubt, that the scene ought to come in before the Chorus, and thus 
close the first Act, instead of opening the second Act, as it does in 
modern editions generally. The propriety of the transposition is so 
evident, that I have ventured to make it. 

P. 58. But, when the time comes, there shall be smites. — The old 
text has smiles instead of smites. The correction was proposed by 
Farmer, and is made in Collier's second folio. 

P. 58. And we'll be all sworn brothers in France. — The old text has 
" brothers to France," to having probably crept in out of place from 
the line above. The correction is Johnson's. 

P. 58. And, when I cannot live any longer, I will die as I may. — 
So Mason and Walker. The old copies have do and doe instead of die. 

P. 59. O well-a-day, Lady, if he be not drawn ! — The old text reads 
" if he be not hewne." Corrected by Theobald. 

P. 61. Mine host Pistol, you must come to my master, — and you, 
hostess. — The old text has " and your hostess." 



1^8 KING HENRY THE FIFTH. 



Act 11., Chorus. 

P. 63. Now thrive the armourers. — Collier's second folio substi- 
tutes strive for thrive. I suspect strive is right ; but it may be that, 
in such cases, the armourers were wont to receive a fee from those 
whom they served. 

P. 65. And. by their hands this grace of kings must die, 
If Hell and treason hold their promises, 
Ere he take ship for France, and in Southampton. 
The sum is paid ; the traitors are agreed ; 
The King is set from London ; &c. — Between the third and 
fourth of these lines, the folio has the following : 

Linger your patience on, and wee'l digest 
Th' abuse of distance ; force a play. 

Pope tinkered this into " and well digest th' abuse of distance, while 
we force a play." Collier's second folio reads " and so force a play." 
No one, so far as I know, has explained the meaning of force a play ; 
and it seems to me stark nonsense. I cannot but regard the two lines 
as an interpolation : besides being unintelligible, they have no sort of 
fitness to the context, and are simply a nuisance. Knight thinks they 
"were intended to be erased from the author's copy"; and Lettsom 
says " they appear to have formed a portion of the close of this Chorus, 
and to have been replaced by the lines beginning with ' The sum is 
paid.' " 

P. 65. We'll not offend one stomach tvith our play. — Here, again, 
the folio has two lines added, thus : 

But till the King come forth, and not till then, 
Unto Southampton do we shift our Scene. 

This flatly contradicts what the Chorus has just said, " The scene is now 
transported, gentles, to Southampton." Moreover, the first line flatly 
contradicts itself, and cannot be reduced to consistency without chang- 
ing "Till the King come forth" to "When the King comes forth," 
which is indeed Hanmer's reading. As I have already noted, the folio 



CRITICAL NOTES. 1 79 

sets this Chorus before the scene which here precedes it ; and the two 
lines were probably added by some " scribbler," in order to patch up 
the disorder resulting from that misplacement of the Chorus. 

Act ii., Scene i. 

P. 66. And shall forget the office of our hand, 

Sooner than quittance of desert and merit 

According to their iveight and worthiness. — The folio has 
" According to the weight." The correction is derived from the quar- 
tos, which read " According to their cause" 

P. 67. We consider 

It was excess of wine that set him on ; 

And, on our more advice, we pardon him. — The old copies 
read " on his more advice." The correction is from Collier's second 
folio. Lettsom thinks " the error proceeded from him and his occur- 
ring in the neighbourhood." 

P. 68. To furnish him with all appertinents. — The first folio lacks 
him, which is supplied in the second. 

P. 70. But he that tempted thee bade thee stand up, &c. — The old 
text has te?nper'd instead of tempted, which was proposed by Johnson. 
As Lettsom says, " the context requires tempted." 

P. 70. Show men dutiful ? 

Why, so didst thou : or seem they grave and learned, &c. — 
The old text omits or, which was supplied by Pope. I cannot think 
the Poet would leave such a gap in the metre here. 

P. 71. And thus thy fall hath left a kind of blot, 

To mark the full-fraught 7?ian and best-indued 
With some suspicion. — The old text reads " To make thee full 
fraught." Corrected by Theobald. 

P. 72. Which I in sufferance heartily will rejoice. — The first folio 
omits /, which is supplied in the second. 



l80 KING HENRY THE FIFTH. 



Act ii., Scene 2. 



P. 74. 'A made a fine end. — So Capell. The old text has " a finer 
end." Mason says, " ' He made a fine end ' is at this day a vulgar 
expression, when any person dies with resolution and devotion." And 
Walker notes upon the text, " Surely fine is the right reading." 

P. 74. For his nose was as sharp as a pen, and \i babbled of green 
fields. — The old text reads " and a Table of greene fields." The well- 
known emendation is Theobald's, and is probably the happiest one 
ever made in Shakespeare's text. I subjoin Theobald's account of it : 
" I have an edition of Shakespeare by me with some marginal conjec- 
tures of a gentleman sometime deceased ; and he is of the mind to 
correct this passage thus ; ' for his nose was as sharp as a pen, and 'a 
talked of green fields.' It is certainly observable of people near death, 
when they are delirious by a fever, that they talk of moving ; as it is 
of those in a calenture, that they have their heads run on green fields. 
The variation from Table to talked is not of a very great latitude ; 
though we may still come nearer the traces of the letters by restoring 
it thus ; ' for his nose was as sharp as a pen, and 'a babied of green 
fields.' To bable, or babble, is to mutter, or speak indiscriminately, like 
children that cannot yet talk, or dying persons when they are losing 
the use of speech." 

Act 11., Scene 3. 

P. 78. So the proportions of defence are filTd ' ; 
Which of a weak and niggardly projection, 
Doth, like a miser, spoil his coat with scanting 
A little cloth. — The construction here is very awkward and 
irregular, to say the least. I strongly suspect we ought to adopt 
Malone's conjecture, "While oft a weak," &c. See, however, foot- 
note 5. 

P. 78. Whiles that his mighty sire — on mountain standing, &c. — 
Not in the quartos. The folio has mountain instead of mighty. Theo- 
bald substituted mounting, and Coleridge proposed monarch, not hap- 
pily, I think. The reading in the text v/as proposed anonymously in 



CRITICAL NOTES. l8l 

1845, an d is also found in Collier's second folio. The old reading 
looks, to me, very like a player's improvement on what the Poet wrote. 
Mountain seems quite inappropriate as an epithet of Edward the 
Third : had it been used of his father, there might have been some fit- 
ness in it, as Edward the Second was in fact born among the mountains 
in Wales, and the Welsh made a good deal of that circumstance. In 
support of mountain, Steevens quotes from The Faerie Queene, i. 11,4: 

Where strecht he lay upon the sunny side 
Of a great hill, himselfe like a great hill. 

If Steevens had quoted the preceding line, — " Eftsoones that dreadful 
Dragon they espyde," — I think the quotation would have been seen 
at once to be something unapt. 

P. 79. From our brother England. — So the first two quartos. The 
third quarto and the folio have " our brother of England." The same 
difference occurs again shortly after : " Back to our brother England." 

P. 80. Willing you overlook his pedigree. — The old copies have 
" this pedigree." Corrected by Rowe. This instances of his and this 
confounded are very numerous. 

P. 80. Therefore in fiery tempest is he coming. — So Walker. The 
old text has fierce instead of fiery. The latter word being spelt fierie, 
such a misprint was very easy. 

Act hi., Chorus. 

P. 82. Suppose that you have seen 

The well-appointed King at Hampton pier 

Embark his royalty. — The original has "at Dover pier." A 
very palpable error, which Theobald corrected. 

P. 83. With silken streamers the young Phoebus fanning. — The 
original has fay ning. Hardly worth noting. 

P. 83. Behold the threaden sails, 

Borne with th' invisible and creeping wind, &c. — Collier's sec- 
ond folio substitutes Blown for Borne. Rightly, I suspect. Lettsom 



1 82 KING HENRY THE FIFTH. 

notes upon it thus: "I believe that Collier's Corrector was right in 
reading Blown. For blown in this sense see particularly Pericles, v., 
i : ' Towards Ephesus turn our blown sails.' " 

Act hi., Scene i. 

P. 84. Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood. — The old text has 
" commune up the blood." Corrected by Rowe. 

P. 85. On, on, you noble English. — The original has noblish in- 
stead of noble ; the ending of the next word having, no doubt, been 
accidentally repeated. The meaning is "you English nobles" as dis- 
tinguished from the " good yeomen " whom the King addresses a little 
after. Corrected by Malone. 

P. 85. Be copy now to men of grosser blood. So the fourth folio. 
The earlier editions have me instead of men. 

P. 85. I see you stand like greyhounds in the slips, 

Straining upon the start. — The old text has "straying upon the 
start." Corrected by Rowe. 

P. 86. Gofs plood ! — Up to the preaches, you rascals ! — So the 
quartos. The folio reads " Up to the breach, you Dogges ; avaunt you 
Cullions." And all the old copies are very irregular and inconstant 
throughout in regard to Fluellen's dialect, shifting between breach and 
preach, bridge and pridge, God and Got, good and goot, world and 'orld ; 
as also between war and wars, &c. I agree with Dyce that his dialect 
ought to be made consistently Welsh, and print accordingly. 

P. 90. The day is hot, and the weather, and the wars, and the King, 
and the duke. — The old text has "and the Dukes.'" The reference 
probably is to the Duke of Gloster, who, a little before, is said to be 
" altogether directed " by Macmorris. 

P, 90. Of my nation ! What ish my nation ? what ish my nation ? 
Who talks of my nation ish a villain, and a basterd, and a knave, and 
a rascal. — This speech is not in the quartos. In the folio it makes 
three lines, and the second and third lines are transposed, thus : " Of 



CRITICAL NOTES. 1 83 

my nation ! What ish my nation ? Ish a villain, and a basterd, and a 
knave, and a rascal. What ish my nation ? Who talks of my nation? " 
This odd displacement of the text was continued till our day, and for 
the happy correction we are indebted to Knight. 

P. 91^ Gentlemen both, you still mistake each other. — So Walker. 
The old text reads "you will mistake." As Gower everywhere else 
uses correct English, and as the " gentlemen " have been " mistaking 
each other " all along, I have no scruple about the change. 

Act hi., Scene 2. 

P. 92. Look to see 

The blind and bloody soldier with fotd hand 
Defile the locks of your shrill-shrieking daughters. — The old 
text has "Desire the locks." Corrected by Rowe. 

P. 93. The Dauphin, whom of succour we entreated, 

Returns us, that his powers are not yet ready. — The folio reads 
" are yet not ready." Capell's correction from the quartos. 

Act hi., Scene 4. 

P. 97. Poor we may call them in their native lords ! — So the sec- 
ond folio. The first omits may. The passage is not in the quartos. 

P. 98. Foix, Lestrale, Bouciqualt, and Charolois ; 

High dukes, great princes, barons, lords, and knights, 
For your great seats, now quit you of great shames. — The old 
text has Loys instead of Foix. In iv. 8, the same name is there mis- 
printed Foyes. In the second line, the old text has Kings instead of 
knights. Corrected by Theobald. In the third line, Collier's second 
folio changes seats to states, which may be right. 

Act hi., Scene 5. 

P. 99. There is an auncient there at the pridge. — The folio reads 
" an aunchient Lieutenant there "; the quartos, " an ensigne there." It 
is nowise likely that Fluellen would use both titles together, and he 
repeatedly calls Pistol Auncient. 



I84 KING HENRY THE FIFTH. 

P. ioo. Bardolph, a soldier, firm and sound of heart, 

Of buxom valour, hath, by cruel fate, &c. — The old text reads 
"And of buxom valour." Corrected by Capell. 

P. 102. Which they trick up with «<fw-coined oaths. — So Collier's 
second folio. The old text has " with new-tuned Oathes." Pope reads 
" with new-turned oaths." 

Act hi., Scene 6. 

P. 106. I will not change my horse with any that treads but on four 
pasterns. — So the second folio. The first has " four postures." Not 
in the quartos. 

Act iv., Chorus. 

P. 112. The country cocks do crow, the clocks do toll, 

And the third hour of drowsy morning name. — The old text 
has nani'd instead of name. Corrected by Tyrwhitt. 

P. 112. And their gesture sad, 

Investing lank-lean cheeks, and war-worn coats, 
Presenteth them unto the gazing Moon 

So many horrid ghosts. — Instead of Presenteth, the old text 
has Presented. — Divers editors have stumbled rather strangely at the 
word investing here. Hanmer reads "In wasted lank-lean cheeks"; 
Warburton, "Invest in lank-lean cheeks"; Heath proposes "In fast- 
ing lank-lean cheeks," and Staunton "Infestive, lank-lean cheeks"; 
while Capell transposes the line, — "And war-worn coats, investing 
lank-lean cheeks." I mention all this merely for the curiosity of the 
thing. Except that the metaphor is somewhat strained, I see no diffi- 
culty in the old text. See foot-note 6. 

P. 113. A largess universal, like the Sun, 
His liberal eye doth give to every one, 
Thawing cold fear ; that itiean and gentle all 
Behold, as may unworthiness define, 

A little touch of Harry in the night. — Various editors, among 
them Theobald, Singer, Staunton, and Dyce, understand the latter half 



CRITICAL NOTES. 1 85 

of this, all after cold fear, as being addressed to the audience, and so 
print it thus : " Thawing cold fear. Then, mean and gentle all, Be- 
hold," &.c. For my part, I have never so understood the passage, nor 
do I see any occasion for so understanding it. It seems to me that the 
latter half is merely a continuation t of the foregoing narrative or de- 
scription, and that " mean and gentle all " refers to the different ranks 
of the army. See foot-note 8. 

Act iv., Scene i. 

P. 116. So! in the name of Chesu Christ, speak lower. — So the 
third quarto. The other quartos have lewer, the folio fewer. 

P. 117. Under Sir Thomas Erpingham. — The old text has John 
instead of Thomas. Corrected by Pope. 

P. 118. Court. Ay, or more than we should seek after ; &c. — The old 
text assigns this speech to Bates. Malone remarks that " this senti- 
ment does not correspond with what Bates has just before said "; and 
he thinks " the speech should be given to Court." Surely Malone is 
right in this. 

P. 119. When all those legs and arms and hands, chopped off in battle. 
— So the second folio. The first has " in a Battaile." The same a 
little after, in " I am afraid there are few die well that die in battle." 

P. 120. Will. ' Tis certain, every man that dies ill, the ill is upon his 
own head. — So the fourth folio. The earlier editions omit is. — Here, 
again, I suspect, with Malone and Capell, that the speech ought to be 
given to Court. Possibly, however, the Poet meant to indicate that 
the King's argument has wrought some change of opinion in Williams. 

P. 123. O ceremony, show me but thy worth ! 

What are thy rents ? what are thy comings-in ? 

What is thy soul of adoration ? — In the old text the first and 
second of these lines are transposed. The correction is Lettsom's. — 
The first folio has " thy Soule of Odoration." Corrected in the sec- 
ond. Some editors, finding a difficulty in the line, adopt Johnson's 



1 86 KING HENRY THE FIFTH. 

reading, — " What is thy soul, adoration ? " I do not see how this 
helps the matter at all. Collier's second folio reads " What is thy soul 
but adulation ? " A very strange sentiment to be put into the King's 
mouth! See foot-note 21. 

P. 125. O God of battles ! steel my soldiers' hearts; 
Possess them not with fear ; take from them now 
The sense of reckoning, if th' opposed numbers 
Pluck their hearts from them. — So the folio, except that, in 
the third line, it reads " The sense of reckoning of th' opposed num- 
bers." A good deal has been written upon the passage ; but the 
slight change proposed by Tyrwhitt, of to if gives it a fitting sense : 
only the auxiliary would needs to be understood before Pluck. As 
Steevens observes, " if the sense of reckoning was taken from them, 
the numbers opposed to them would be no longer formidable ; when 
they could no more count their enemies, they could no longer fear 
them." And such is the sense of the quarto reading: 

O God of battels, Steele my souldiers harts, 
Take from them now the sence of reckoning, 
That the apposed multitudes which stand before them 
May not appall their courage. 

Act iv., Scene 2. 

P. 126. That their hot blood may spin in English eyes, 

And dout them with superfluous courage. — The old text has 
doubt, which seems to have been a not uncommon spelling of dout. At 
all events, the sense of dout is clearly required. Some have strained 
hard to make the sense of doubt fit the occasion ; but it will not go. 

P. 128. The gum down-roping from their pale-dead eyes, 
And in their pall'd dull mouths the gimmal-bit 
Lies foul with chewed grass, still and motionless. — The old text 
reads "And in their pale dull mouths." I am not disposed to lay very 
great stress on the repetition of pale, awkward as it is ; but surely the 
Poet would not have thus applied it to an exhausted horse's mouth. 
On the other hand, palPd, if written paid, as was often the case in sim- 
ilar words, might easily be mistaken for pale. In fact, instances of 



CRITICAL NOTES. 1 87 

final dand final e confounded are very frequent. And paWd, in the 
sense of broken, spiritless, depressed, suits the context well. So in An- 
tony and Cleopatra, ii. 7 : " I'll never follow thy paWd fortunes more." 
Here the spelling of the original is pauPd. Capell's reading in the 
text is " And in their palled mouths." 

P. 128. / stay but for my guidon : to the field ! 

I will the banner from a trumpet take, 

And use it for my haste. — The old text reads " I stay but for 
my Guard : on to the field." The Cambridge Editors print as in the 
text, and make the following note thereon: "The conjectural reading, 
guidon, which is attributed by recent editors to Dr. Thackeray, late 
Provost of King's College, Cambridge, is found in Rann's edition, 
without any name attached. Dr. Thackeray probably made the con- 
jecture independently. We find it written in pencil on the margin of 
his copy of Nares' Glossary, under the word Guard." I must add, 
that Walker fully approves of the correction. See foot-note II. 

Act iv., Scene 3. 

P. 129. Bed. Farewell, good Salisbury ; and good luck go with thee. 
Exe. Farewell, kind lord ; fight valiantly to day : 
And yet I do thee wrong to mind thee of it, 

For thou art framed of the firm truth of valour. — In the folio 
the second of these lines, prefix and all, occupies the place of the 
fourth ; so that the whole passage stands thus : 

Bed/. Farewell good Salisbury, & good luck go with thee: 
And yet I doe thee wrong to mind thee of it, 
For thou art fram'd of the firrae truth of valour- 

Exe. Farewell kind Lord: fight valiantly to-day. 

Thirlby made the correction, and a very happy one it is too. 

P. 130. We would not live in that mail's company 

That fears his fellowship to die with us. — In the first of these 
lines the old text has die instead of live, which was proposed by Cole- 
ridge. The propriety of the change, both for the antithesis it makes 
with die in the next line, and for its fitness to what precedes, seems 
evident enough. Of course the meaning of the second line is, "That 
fears to die in fellowship with us." 



1 88 KING HENRY THE FIFTH. 

P. 1 3 1 . He that shall live this day, and see old age. — The folio reads 
" He that shall see this day, and live old age." Pope made the correc- 
tion, which is indeed obvious enough. 



P. 131. Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars, 

And say, These wounds I had on Crispin's day. — The second 
of these lines is not in the folio, but is justly retained from the quartos 
by most editors, because, without it, the transition to what follows is 
too abrupt. 



P. 131. Then shall our names, 

Familiar in their mouths as household words, — 
Harry the King, Bedford and Exeter, 
Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloster, — 
Be in their flowing cups freshly remembered. — So the quartos. 
In the second line, the folio reads " Familiar in his mouth" Either 
reading fits the context well enough ; " his mouth " referring to the old 
war-marked soldier who is supposed to be " feasting his neighbours," 
and telling them " what feats he did that day." But, as Singer ob- 
serves, "the established reading of the quartos has so long been 
' familiar in our mouths,' that it would be rash and unpopular to dis- 
turb it." 



P. 133. Mark, then, abounding valour in our English; 

That, being dead, like to the bullefs grazing, 

Break out into a second course of mischief, 

Killing in relapse of mortality. — In the first of these lines, 
the quartos have " abundant valour." Theobald printed " a bounding 
valour." Collier's second folio reads " rebounding valour," which 
Knight also conjectured, and which may be right. — In the second 
line, the first folio has " bullet's erasing" Corrected in the second 
folio. But should it not be glancing '? In the last line, again, Collier's 
second folio changes relapse to reflex ; which seems to me a vicious 
change, because it gives a wrong meaning. Besides being, I think, 
just the right word, relapse would not easily be misprinted for reflex. 
See foot-note 10. 



CRITICAL NOTES. 1 89 

P. 134. And my poor soldiers tell me, yet ere night 
They'll be in fresher robes ; for they will pluck 
The gay new coats o'er the French soldiers' heads, 
And turn them out of service. If they do this, — 
As, if God please, they shall, — my ransom then 
Will soon be levied. Herald, save thy labour. — In the second 
of these lines, the old text has or instead of for. I can make no sense 
out of or there, and the two words were in fact often confounded. 
The correction is Hanmer's. In the last line, again, the old text reads 
" save thou thy labour." I have no doubt of thou being an interpola- 
tion : it spoils the metre, without helping the sense. 

P. 134. I fear thou 1 It come once more again for ransom. — The old 
text has " for a Ransome." One of the many instances of a interpo- 
lated. 

Act iv., Scene 4. 

p. 135. Quality! Callino, castore me ! — Art thou a gentleman ? — 
The old text has " Qualtitie calmie custure me." The reading in the 
text is derived from an old Irish song preserved in Playford's Musical 
Companion, 1673. Warburton gave the reading, "Quality! cality ! 
construe me," which Staunton adopts, pronouncing the common read- 
ing and explanation " too preposterous." See foot-note 1. 

P. 135. Moy shall not serve ; I will have forty moys ; 

Ox I will pluck thy rim out of thy throat. — The old text For 
instead of Or. See the last but one of the Critical Notes on the pre- 
ceding scene. 

P. 138. The French might have a good prey of us, */they knew of it. 
— So Collier's second folio. The old text reads " if he knew of it." 
The change, it seems to me, is fairly required. 

Act iv., Scene 5. 

P. 138. Reproach, reproach, and everlasting shame 

Sit mocking on our plumes. — So Capell. The old text has 
" Reproach, and everlasting shame." Walker notes upon the passage, 
"I suspect that another substantive {contempt? or possibly some word 



I9O KING HENRY THE FIFTH. 

beginning with re) has dropt out after reproach?' Why not rebuke ? 
At all events, I can hardly think the old text complete. And perhaps, 
after all, the lepetition is more emphatic than any variation would be. 

P. 1 38. Be these the wretches that we pla/d at dice ? — The old text 
reads "plaid at dicey^r." Lettsom thought that for ought to be omit- 
ted. So in the Chorus, page 112, " The confident and over-lusty 
French Do the low-rated English play at dice." 

P. 138. Let's die in honour: once more back again. — The folio 
reads " Let us dye in once more backe againe." Knight corrected the 
text by introducing honour from the corresponding matter of the 
quartos. 

Act iv., Scene 6. 

P. 139. My soul shall keep thine company to Heaven. — The old 
text reads " shall thine keep company." Walker's correction. 

P. 140. But I had not so much of matt in me 

But all my mother came into mine eyes, &c. — So Pope, from 
the quartos. The folio has "And all my mother." I find it not easy 
to fix a choice here between the two readings. Lettsom proposed For. 
Perhaps rightly. 

P. 140. For, hearing this, I must perforce compound 

With mistful eyes. — The old text has " With mixful eyes." 
Warburton's correction. 

Act iv., Scene 7. 

P. 143. That we may wander o'er the bloody field 

To look our dead, and then to bury them. — So Collier's second 
folio. The old text has " To booke our dead." Shakespeare has many 
instances of to look used transitively. And White observes that " to 
book our dead " is " a phrase entirely inconsistent with the customs and 
necessities of the field of battle." 



CRITICAL NOTES. I9I 

P. 143. So do our vulgar drench their peasant limbs 
In blood of princes ; and the wounded steeds 
Fret fetlock deep in gore. — The old text has "and with wound- 
ed steeds." A very palpable error, which Malone corrected by substi- 
tuting their for with. The reasons for preferring the are obvious 
enough. The correction is Capell's. 

P. 145. Who if 'a live, and ever dare to challenge this glove, &c. — 
So Capell. The old text reads " who if alive, and ever dare." 

P. 146. I would fain see the man, that has but two legs, that shall 
find himself aggrief d at this glove, this is all ; I would fain but see it 
once, &c. — The old text reads " but I would fain see it once." The 
correction is Dyce's. 

Act iv., Scene 9. 

P. 152. Scene IX. — France. An English Court of Guard. — The 
folio prints this scene as the opening of the fifth Act, and so of course 
sets it after the Chorus which here follows it. A piece of disorder 
very like that which I have already remarked touching what is here 
printed as the third scene of the first Act. See page 177. Johnson 
thought the present scene ought to close the fourth Act. It is clearly 
out of place at the beginning of the fifth ; and the matter of it must 
be supposed to follow close upon the heels of the battle. Perhaps I 
ought to note further, that in the folio the first Act includes the whole 
of what modern editions give as the first and second Acts ; that the 
folio has "Actus Secundus " and "Actus Tertius " where modern edi- 
tions have "ACT III." and "ACT IV."; and that the folio has "Actus 
Quartus " at the head of what stands in modern editions as the seventh 
scene in the fourth Act. How the arrangement in the folio came to 
be so disordered, is a matter about which we can only speculate. 

P. 153. I, eat, and eke I swear. — So Johnson. The old text has 
" I eate and eate I sweare." White prints " I eat, and yet I swear," 
which may be right. 



P. 154. News have I, that my Nell is dead V the spital 

Of malady of France. — Instead of Nell, the old text has Doll ; 
a palpable blunder, since Pistol, as appears in the third scene of the 



I92 KING HENRY THE FIFTH. 

play, has been married to " Nell Quickly," and is at swords' points with 
Doll Tear-sheet. — The old text also has " Of a malady." 

P. 155. And patches will I get unto these scars, 

And swear I got them in the Gallia wars. — So the quartos. 
The folio has " unto these cudgeld scarres." 

Act v., Chorus. 

P. 155. Vouchsafe all those that have not read the story, 
That I may prompt them ■ and, for such as have, 
I humbly pray them to admit th' excuse, &c. — So Collier's sec- 
ond folio. The old text has " Vouchsafe to those "; also, " and 0/such 
as have." The latter correction was made by Capell also. I adopt 
both, because I do not understand the old text. 

P. 155. Behold, the English beach 

Pales-in the flood with men, with wives, and boys. — So the sec- 
ond folio. The first omits the second with. 

P. 156. As, by a lower but loving likelihood, 

Were now the general of our gracious Empress, &c. — So Walk- 
er. The old text reads " by a lower but by loving." 

P. 157. The Emperor coming in behalf of France. — The old text 
has "The Emperour's coming." The correction is Heath's. Yet I 
am not sure but the old text may be right ; "The Emperor's " mean- 
ing " The Emperor is." 

Act v., Scene i. 

P. 159. Dear nurse of arts, plenty, and joyful births. — For plenty, 
the old text has plenties. Walker notes, " The error arose {ut sape) 
from contagion." 

P. 159. The even mead, that erst brought sweetly forth 
The freckled cowslip, bur net, and green clover, 
Wanting the scythe, all uncorrected, rank, 

Conceives by idleness, &c. — The old text has " withall uncor- 
rected." A very palpable blunder, insomuch as to be hardly worth 
noting. 



CRITICAL NOTES. I93 

P. 159. And as our vineyards, fallows, meads, and hedges, 
Defective in their natures, grow to wildness, 
Even so our houses, and ourselves and children, &c. — The old 
text " And all our Vineyards." Corrected by Roderick. 

P. 161. We will suddenly 

Pass our accept and peremptory answer. — The meaning here 
is obscure, and the reading doubtful, to say the least ; though Walker 
quotes it as correct, and Lettsom pronounces it. to be "right." War- 
burton proposed, and Theobald printed, " Pass, or accept," and so it 
is in Collier's second folio. Malone conjectured " Pass, or except." 
With either of these readings, answer, I suppose, must be taken as a 
verb, and peremptory as used adverbially. Mr. Swynfen Jervis pro- 
poses " Pass our exact," and the same change long ago occurred to 
me. This reading would give a natural and fitting sense ; and so, I 
have little doubt, we ought to read. 

P. 162. Cath. Sauf votre Honneur, me understand veil — I suspect 
we ought to read "me understand not veil," as'Dyce suggests. 

P. 164. Quand j'ai la possession de France. — The old text reads 
" Je quand sur le possession." 

P. 1 65 . Notwithstanding the poor and untempting effect of my visage. 
— So Warburton and Collier's second folio. The old text has " un- 
tempering effect." See note on "But he that tempted thee," &c, 
page 179. 

P. 166. Therefore, queen of all Catharines, &c. — The old text has 
" queen of all, Katharine." The happy correction occurred both to 
Capell and to Walker. 

P. 166. En baisant la main d'une votre indigne serviteur. — The old 
text reads " d'une nostre Seigneur indignie serviteur." 

P. 168. For they are all girdled with maiden walls that war hath 
never entered. — The old text lacks never, which was introduced by 
Rowe. Capell and Collier's second folio insert not. 



194 



KING HENRY THE FIFTH. 



P. 1 69. The King hath granted every article : 

His daughter first ; and then, in sequel, all, 
According to their first-proposed natures. — The first folio lacks 
then, which was supplied in the second. In the last line, the old text 
has " their firme proposed natures." The correction is Walker's. 

P. 170. Thrust in between the paction of these kingdoms. — The old 
text has pation instead of paction. Corrected by Theobald. 

P. 170. My Lord of Burgundy, we'll take your oath. 

And all the peers' , for surety of our league. —The old text has 
Leagues. Another instance of " contagion," like that of plenties. See 
first note on this scene. 

Chorus. 

P. 170. Mangling by starts the full course of their glory. — Upon 
this, Mr. A. E. Brae notes as follows : " Most certainly I read struts, 
and' not starts. The whole of the Chorus is apologetic and depreca- 
tory ; as in that of the fourth Act : ' When, O, for pity,' &c. Com- 
pare in Troilus and Cressida : ' And like a strutting player,' &c." 
Still I do not see that any thing would be gained by the change : the 
apologetic force seems as well conveyed by starts as by struts. See 
foot-note 28. 



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